The Duke men's and women's indoor track and field teams continued a steady streak of stellar performances this past weekend at the 14th annual Meyo Invitational in the Loftus Sports Complex at Notre Dame. This meet, which targeted individual performance as opposed to overall team effort, was a site for more Duke history making as both junior Katie Atlas and freshman Chris Douglas placed themselves in the Duke Indoor record book.
Although the track season is young, Atlas has already made quite an impression. Atlas opened her season by shattering the 1,000-meter record at the Father Diamond Invitational in Fairfax, Va. She proceeded to crush the mile record, set last year by powerhouse Sheela Agrawal, two weeks later with a time of 4:43.34, an impressive 10 seconds faster than Agrawal.
On Saturday, Altas did it again. With a second-place finish in the 800-meter run, Atlas turned out a time of 2:09 flat, fast enough to squeak by Kim Voyticky's time of 2:09.17, set in 1998. Atlas, in the process of breaking her third Duke record this season, also met ECAC standards for a third time this season.
For the men, Douglas, a Duke track novice, also left his mark. Fresh off football season where he competed as a running back, Douglas grabbed 13th in the 60-meter dash with a time of 7:06. This promising performance was enough rank him fourth on the all-time list in the Duke record book. Coach Norm Ogilvie found Douglas' performance to be an impressive debut and noted that Douglas was one-tenth of a second off of qualifying for the IC4A standards.
The strength of the Duke men's and women's track teams did not stop at these performances, however. Senior Jillian Schwartz also adjusted the record book. Once again beating her own pole vault record, Schwartz gave an impressive first-place performance with a vault of 12-feet-6, enough to earn her NCAA provisional qualifying marks.
"Jillian had a superb weekend and will get even better," women's coach Jan Samuelson-Ogilvie said. "She is aiming for big things."
Junior Maddy Woodmansee also made a name for herself as she took third in the 1,000-meter run with a time of 2:59.01.
Samuelson-Ogilivie noted that there has been some illnesses running through the women's team and she plans to take the next two weeks to allow her athletes to get healthy so they can perform even stronger at the ACCs Feb. 16-17.
Back on the men's scoreboard, sophomore David Maloney captured a solid seventh place in the 500-meter run with a time of 1:06.26. Maloney will join Douglas on the all-time indoor list, also ranking fourth at Duke in the history of his event.
Although impressed with all these performances, Ogilvie was especially proud of three athletes who met IC4A qualifying standards for the championship meet in Boston this March. Senior Terry Brennan, junior Brendan Wells and Bill Spierdowis all qualified for the event.
Ogilvie also plans to rest some of his athletes next weekend at the Virginia Tech Invitational in Blacksburg Va., as he will be running several promising athletes whose work ethic may earn them a spot at the ACCs in two weeks.
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