By Christopher Hunt
photo by Tim Fulton
Duke coach Norm Ogilvie didn’t have much reservation when he threw two freshmen on the front of his distance medley relay.
Ogilvie still didn’t have any even after Demenick DeMatteo and Ben Raskin almost blew the first stick pass either. BYU’s leadoff leg got wedged in between DeMatteo, Duke’s leadoff, and Raskin, forcing DeMatteo to reach around so that Raskin could snatch the baton before he spilled to the track.
And once they averted the crisis – and Curtis Beach delivered a monster 800-meter leg – Duke won the distance medley relay for the second straight year at the New Balance Collegiate Invitational Friday. DeMatteo (3:00.3), Raskin (49.5), Beach (1:49.5) and Josh Lund (4:06.9) finished in 9:46.17.
“They kept their poise,” Ogilvie said of his freshmen. “They knew the pressure was on to win again and they did a great job of keeping their composure.”
Beach, the national high school record-holder in the decathlon, took the baton buried in seventh place. But each lap gained more ground and picked off the leaders until he turned the race over to Lund in third, and in contact with Tennessee out front.
“I knew there’s so much that can change before then and when I get the stick,” Lund said. “I just wanted to sit on the leaders and wait for a chance to make my move, and then make it.”
Lund delivered a huge surge on the bell lap that put the race away and gave the Blue Devils their second consecutive DMR victory.
“It’s awesome coming back here and winning again,” said Lund, who wasn’t on last year’s squad. “This means a lot for us.”
Arkansas won the women’s championship DMR in 11:02.45 with Kristen Gillepie, Shelise Williams, Regina George and Stephanie Brown.
Junior Neely Spence of Shippensburg (Pa.) won the women’s 5,000 championship for the second year in a row. This time, she dropped the field with a mile left to win in 16:01.09 and earn the automatic qualifier for the NCAA championships.
“After the mile, I heard on of the girls from BYU talking to me,” Spence said. “She said she wanted to run around 16:10 so I just kind of took the lead. I was feeling pretty good with a mile to go and my dad was (off the first curve) and he told me to I could go so that’s what I did.”
Records galore fell in the first day of the Collegiate Invitational. Columbia senior Jeff Moriarty took down the meet and Armory facility record in the men’s championship 1,000. Moriarty finished in 2:20.77, topping last year’s record mark of 2:21.56 set by Dorian Ulrey of Arkansas.
Sarah Edwards of BYU, snapped her own meet record in the women’s championship 1,000. She clocked 2:45.73, leading all the way, to better her own record, 2:48.50, set last year.
Mason Finley, the NCAA runner-up in the shot put last year, broke the meet record in the shot put Friday with a throw of 67 feet, 11.25 inches after fouling on his first two attempts. Finley demolished the old meet record of 64-1 set by Nedzad Mulabegovic of Purdue.
“After that I just wanted to get a throw to get into the final,” Finley said. “Once you get into the final you can always breathe a little easier and after I got some of the technical things worked out I just wanted to push a little harder.
“This is early to keep throwing this far is pretty good.”
South Carolina’s Lakya Brookins missed the Armory and meet record by .01, while winning the 60 meter championship in 7.18. Her time is the fastest by an American this season. Horatio Williams of LSU won the men’s championship race in 6.64.
Jessica Beard of Texas A&M ran the fastest time headed into Saturday’s 400-meter final. The senior finished in 53.06. Dustin Emrani, a graduate of Great Neck North, won the open men’s 800 in 1:49.09.
By Christopher Hunt
photo by Tim Fulton