Blue Devils Rewrite Record Books In Banner Day At Classic

Friday, January 23

Boston, Mass.

All Day

Duke University

Day One

Five NCAA Regional Marks, Five Individual Wins At Duke Invitational

Blue Devils Rewrite Record Books In Banner Day At Classic

1/23/2009 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field

By: Duke Sports Information

BOSTON ? The Duke track & field squads turned in one school record, one NCAA Provisional qualifier, nine ECAC standards, one IC4A qualifier, eight top-five Duke all-time performances, and four first-place finishes on the day during day one of competition at the Terrier Classic Friday evening at Boston University's Track & Tennis Center.

A total of 2,200 student-athletes from schools all over the East Coast join the Blue Devils in Beantown for the two-day meet. Tonight's events were primarily women's, with the exception of the men's distance medley relay.

Tomorrow will see the men's events in addition to the women's distance medley and 4x800 meters.

“This was a very strong day for Duke Track & Field,” said Director of Track & Field Norm Ogilvie. “We were extremely competitive. It was great to win some events and rack up our qualifying marks. It seemed that the men's DMR got us off to a great start by dominating that race, and the women took that good vibe and ran with it. We are especially pleased to have seen success across the spectrum in the field events and on the track.”

The day began with the Duke men's distance medley relay team of Cory Nanni, Caleb Duncanson, Chris Rowland, and Ryan McDermott winning the event in threepeat fashion as Duke's DMR also won the Terrier Classic in 2007 and 2008. Their time of 9:57.96 was another IC4A qualifying mark after Duke's team won and qualified two weeks ago at the Tar Heel Invitational as well. The foursome won by 15 seconds, besting second-place Tufts (10:12.43) and third-place ACC rival Boston College (10:14.63). Nanni was the lead-off 1200 leg as he came through in 3:03.5 to place Duke in the early lead. Duncanson was up next and turned in a personal-best 400m split of 48.3, followed by Rowland's 1:54.4 800 leg. McDermott would then close out the DMR victory with his personal-best 4:11.6 1600-meter performance.

The one Duke record to fall this evening came in the women's 500 meter run, as freshman Cydney Ross crossed the line in a Blue Devil best 1:13.63 to take first place and qualify for the ECAC Championships in just her first try at the event.

Winning the women's pole vault was sophomore Amy Fryt, whose leap of 12-9 ? sits her second all-time at Duke behind only Olympian Jillian Schwartz. The mark was an ECAC qualifier as well.

It was an especially good day for the Duke freshmen, as rookie Virginia Hine took sixth in the 1000 in an ECAC-qualifying time of 2:51.75, which is the fifth-best time in Duke history. It was her first-ever attempt at the collegiate 1000-meters. The freshman foursome of Nicole Ragucci (58.4), Brittany Whitehead (56.4), Kelsey Ontko (57.8), and Ross (55.5) ran its way to the second-best Duke 4x400m mark as they finished in 3:48.33 to take third overall with an ECAC mark.

In the mile, senior Molly Lehman ran a personal-best 4:47.68, an NCAA Provisional and ECAC standard, as she took second overall. The women's 3K featured senior captain Patricia Loughlin (9:48.02) and freshman Suejin Ahn (9:49.72), both ECAC marks.

Ragucci and Whitehead notched Duke's fourth (57.68) and fifth (57.77) best 400-meter times in history as they took seventh and ninth place, respectively. Devotia Moore took sixth place in the 800, running 2:14.38 for another Duke ECAC qualifier. Christy Adamyk took 10th overall in the 5,000, running 17:24.04 to qualify.

Saturday's track events kick off at 10:45 a.m. with the women's 4x800, while the field events begin at 11 a.m. The Terrier Classic concludes tomorrow evening with the men's 3K at 4:50 p.m.

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