World-Leading Dukes & Cato Among the National Athletes of the Week

NEW ORLEANS – The Florida Relays and Stanford Invitational were this past weekend’s U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) National Meets of the Week, so it’s only fitting that they would combine to produce five of this week’s six National Athletes of the Week.

Gainesville, Fla., was the site of a pair of world-leading times in the sprints and hurdles that translated into USTFCCCA national honors.

Florida junior Dedric Dukes (Miami, Fla./Booker T. Washington HS) claimed the Division I men’s award with his world-leading 19.97 (-0.6 m/s) to win at 200 meters, while the Division II men’s award went to Saint Augustine’s senior Roxroy Cato (Jamaica/Green Island HS) after his world-leading 48.67 in winning the 400-meter hurdles.

Dukes’ win came at the expense of six other top-10 collegians at 200 meters, and his winning time made him the first man in 2014 under 20 seconds, earning him the No. 8 spot on the event’s all-time collegiate performers list.

He wasn’t done there, as he also ran a leg of Florida’s 4×400 relay team which ran the second-fastest time in collegiate history in 2:59.73. Additionally, he was part of Florida’s runner-up 4×100 relay team and finished seventh at 100 meters.

Cato’s winning time is the collegiate leader by nearly a full second, and is fast enough to put him at No. 4 on the all-time Division II performers list. He just missed the all-time college top-10 by .13 of a second, and his performance would equal the fastest NCAA Division II Championships-winning time in history.

While Florida was the hotbed for sprints and hurdles, it was the distance events that took center stage at Stanford, which produced three national award winners in Division I women’s honoree senior Marielle Hall of Texas (Haddonfield, N.J./Haddonfield Memorial HS) and both Division III winners in North Central (Ill.) senior John Crain (Dunlap, Ill./Dunlap HS) and La Verne senior Lenore Moreno (West Covina, Calif./West Covina HS).

Hall demolished her personal best at 5000 meters with a winning time of 15:19.26, lowering her previous record from 2012 by more than a minute. Not only was her performance historic to her, but it moved her to No. 9 on the all-time collegiate performers list and it is ranked No. 2 in the world for 2014.

Crain, who has won this award between indoor, outdoor and cross country five previous times, arguably turned in his best performance yet with a 28:52.73 over 10,000 meters to finish 24th in the elite field of 40 comprised mostly of Division I and professional runners.

With the nearly one-minute career best, he became just the second man in DIII history to break the 29-minute barrier and the first since Dan Mayer of North Central (Ill.) set the 28:48.4 record in 1994.

This award is Crain’s sixth since the National Athlete of the Week honor was first bestowed in January of 2013, making him the most frequent winner. He won once during the 2013 outdoor season, three times during the recent cross country season, and once more during the 2014 indoor season.

Moreno posted a similarly historic performance in the second section of the women’s 10,000, in which she finished runner-up in 33:49.04 with a personal best of one minute, 11 seconds. She jumped up to No. 3 in Division III history with the fastest time since 2003, which leads Division III in 2014 by nearly two full minutes.

Excellent performances certainly weren’t limited to Gainesville, Fla., and Palo Alto, Calif., however. Case in point: sophomore Bethany Drake of Western Washington (Sandy, Ore./Sandy HS) claimed the Division II women’s award with her win in the javelin at the Puget Sound Shotwell Invitational. Her heave of 169-6 (51.66m) – a personal best by more than 12 feet – moved her up to No. 4 in Division II history and No. 10 among all collegians in 2014.

What’s more, her throw was farther than each and every Division II National Championship-winning throw since the current javelin design was first implemented in 1999. Hers was the best Division II throw since 2009.

National Athletes of the Week are announced each Monday throughout the season, with male and female awards for all three NCAA Divisions. Nominations are open to the public and can be completed here.