Pucurs, Vento Win Titles On Last Day Of 2006 ACC Championships

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Pucurs, Vento Win Titles On Last Day Of 2006 ACC Championships

4/22/2006 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field

By: Duke Sports Information

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. ? Duke wrapped up the final day of the 2006 Atlantic Coast Conference Outdoor Championships Saturday with sophomore Daina Pucurs and junior Debra Vento bringing home their first career ACC titles. Seven regional and ECAC/IC4A qualifying standards were achieved by Blue Devils on the last day of competition.

Duke's women moved up one spot from their 2005 finish, ending up in seventh place Saturday with 51 points. The men finished 11th with 23 points.

Pucurs improved her own Duke record in the javelin by 13-4 feet, throwing 168-8 to win the event, well surpassing the NCAA regional qualifying mark of 142-6. Vento earned her sixth All-ACC honor and her first championship while setting a Kentner Stadium record at Wake Forest University in the high jump with her clear of 5-10.75, notching a regional qualifying mark for the fourth time this season in as many tries.

Junior Jonathan Fay found success on the field for the men, scoring in the pole vault with a fifth-place vault of 15-11, which qualified him for the IC4A Championships at Princeton May 12-14. Fay repeated his performance from the 2005 outdoor championships, when he also placed fifth in the pole vault.

Senior Clara Horowitz earned her second All-ACC honor of the year by taking second in the women's 5,000m in a regional-qualifying time of 16:08.6, the second-best time in school history. Horowitz was competing in the 5K for the first time during the outdoor season, as was senior Sally Meyerhoff, who finished fourth. Meyerhoff ran the distance in 16:34.46 to also qualify for the regional championships.

Also notching a qualifying time was the men's 4x400m relay team of Matt Danforth, Brett Morrell, Nick Trombold and Daniel King, whose season-best 3:15.42 was good enough for sixth place and an IC4A qualifying time.

King yielded another scoring performance in the men's 400m finals, where he placed eighth in 48.17, and Peter Lewellen scored in the 800m finals by clocking 1:53.32 for seventh place. Adding an ECAC qualifying time to advance to the women's counterpart to the IC4A Championships was freshman Anna Farias-Eisner, who finished the 1500m in 4:33.71

The Blue Devils head to Philadelphia for the Penn Relays next weekend, where the Duke women will look to defend their distance medley relay title, which they won last year for the first time in Duke history.

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