Five NCAA Regional Marks, Five Individual Wins At Duke Invitational

Friday, April 3

Durham, N.C.

All Day

Duke University

Day One

Five NCAA Regional Marks, Five Individual Wins At Duke Invitational

4/3/2009 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field

By: Duke Sports Information

DURHAM, N.C. ? The Duke track & field squads saw five individual winners to go along with five NCAA Regional qualifying performances during day one of the 2009 Duke/asics Invitational Friday night at Wallace Wade Stadium ? the Blue Devils' first home event of the season.

Sophomore Amy Fryt (pole vault), senior Jade Ellis (triple jump), sophomore Bo Waggoner (5000 meters), senior Molly Lehman (1500 meters), and sophomore John Austin (javelin) picked up first-place finishes for host Duke.

Fryt, Ellis, Lehman, Austin, and Bobby Weinstein ? also in the javelin ? all notched NCAA Regional qualifiers in their events as well.

“This was just great, great stuff today ? a very successful opening day performance for us,” said Director of Track & Field Norm Ogilvie. “We saw some phenomenal performances and we look forward to coming back and continuing it tomorrow.”

For the third straight week, Fryt won her event, this time leaping a career-best outdoor height of 12-11.50 to move into a tie for second all-time at Duke. It was her outdoor best by eight inches and met both the NCAA Regional and ECAC qualifying standards. The pole vault saw three athletes set ECAC marks as Sally Liu and Anne Marie Gordon also met the mark with their performances of 11-9.75.

Ellis went on to win the triple jump with a mark of 49-5.50, an NCAA Regional and IC4A qualifier. In the javelin, Austin won the event with a throw of 209-11, which is an NCAA Regional qualifier and IC4A mark for the sophomore, who was recently tabbed 12th in the nation in the USTFCCCA preseason rankings. Weinstein followed his teammate with a third-place throw of 202-7, also good for both qualifying marks.

Waggoner continued Duke's winning ways, crossing the line first in the 5000 with an IC4A time of 14:24.85. His teammates Andrew Brodeur (14:43.45) and James Osborne (14:46.57) took 10th and 12th, respectively, in the event.

Lehman led a strong women's field in the 1500, as she won the event in an NCAA Regional and ECAC time of 4:20.40, and the senior was followed by six other Duke runners in the top-25 of the event ? with a total of three coming in the top-10. Patricia Loughlin finished seventh in 4:32.08, followed by Esther Vermeer in 4:32.90 to finish 10th. Emily Schwitzer, Christy Adamyk, Mary Carleton Johnston, and Leslie Morrison all eclipsed the top-25 for the Blue Devils in the event.

Cory Nanni took fifth in the men's 1500 in a time of 3:51.71, missing an IC4A mark by under a second. In the men's 400 hurdles, Mario Moreno took fourth in 54.22.

In the women's 3000, Priya Khatri took fifth in 10:28.42, while the Duke men went 2-4-5 in the event as James Kostelnik ran 8:25.57, followed by Ken Sullivan in 8:36.72 and Johns Ross in 8:49.38. Carly Seymour took sixth in her heat of the 5000, crossing the line in 17:57.36.

The Blue Devils will look to follow up today's outing with another strong performance tomorrow during day two of the 2009 Duke/asics Invitational. Keep up with the action using Flash Results.

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