![]() She also had an excellent year as one of the stalwarts in Duke’s signature event, the 4x400 meter relay. Her conference title was the first ever for a Duke female hurdler. She had earned the bronze in 2019 and the silver in 2021. And she set a meet record at the Duke Invitational.įrom the ACC standpoint, Hoffman capped her conference career by winning the gold medal with a time of 56 seconds flat on her home track as Duke hosted the outdoor meet. Hoffman also set new stadium marks in the 400 hurdles three times this year, twice at Vert Stadium in High Point along with Morris Williams Stadium at Duke. That placed her in the final, where she took third place to earn the NCAA bronze medal and first-team All-America honors. Hoffman lowered the record for a fourth time at the NCAA meet with a mark of 55.47 seconds, posting the third best mark among the three semifinal heats. That means she lowered the record by more than a full second over the course of the year, and ran a full two seconds faster this season than she did for her 10th place finish at the 2021 NCAA nationals (57.91). ![]() She knocked it down to 56.53 in the season-opening meet at High Point, became the first Blue Devil to go under 56 seconds in the second meet when she ran 55.98 at the Texas Relays, then bested it for a third time at NCAA Regionals with a time of 55.91. When the 2022 season - and her Duke career - came to an end June 11 at the NCAA Championships in Oregon, Hoffman could look back with pride at having met just about every challenge she set for herself.Īlthough her 4x400 relay unit could not crack the finals against one of the fastest fields ever, Hoffman checked off every other box in delivering the best season for a hurdler in the history of the program.įrom the records standpoint, Hoffman began the year with her name on the board in the locker room at 56.98 from the ACCs. ![]() But top three nationally was the big thing for my individual race, and to be ACC champ on the home track would be special.” I was able to do that in the second meet so I had to figure out what I wanted to run after that, which is a good problem to have. Then for the time I wanted to hit, my goal was to run sub-56 (seconds). “My big goals this year were to lead the 4x4 (relay team) to the NCAA finals and to be top three at the NCAAs for the 400 hurdles. “We make a goal ladder at the beginning of the year with our coaches, putting big goals at the top, then the little goals to help us meet those big goals, and then the things you want to do every day,” Hoffman noted this May, on the eve of her final collegiate postseason. Then she had to come up with a new set of age-appropriate goals befitting an experienced performer who would be a veteran leader for the 2022 Blue Devils. What does one do for an encore to that? First, the evolutionary anthropology degree holder made the decision to return to Duke for a fifth year as a graduate student, taking advantage of the year of eligibility she missed in 2020 due to covid. It took some time, but Hoffman finally reached her objective during her fourth year when she clocked a time of 57.54 seconds in a meet at Virginia, topping former teammate India Lowe’s standard of 57.58.Ī few weeks later, Hoffman lowered the record to 56.98 during a silver-medal run at the 2021 ACC Championships - with a finish that was crucial to the Blue Devils claiming their first conference team title in program history. Whenever she walked by the record board in the team’s locker room, her eyes were drawn to the mark for the 400 meter hurdles while her mind affirmed her desire to one day see her own name listed in that slot. During her first few seasons on the Duke track team, Lauren Hoffman stared down her goal virtually every day.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |