Stepping off the plane into the 80 degree sunlight last weekend in Durham, North Carolina, Sherman Hart didn’t quite know what to expect. What the women’s track coach found, however, was spectacular.

At the Duke Invitational last week, the women runners set three new school records, including the nine-second obliterating of the 12 year old 4×800 meter relay record.

“I was more pleased with the the performance we showed against some of the nations top track programs,” Hart said. “We don’t concern ourselves with records, we don’t even realize we’ve broken them until we get back.”

NU’s 4×100 meter relay team bested the old record by one hundredth of a second, while Ahndraea Allen lowered her own record in the 400-meter dash to 54.78 seconds.

In just two years of running the event, Allen has dropped her 400-meter time almost a full two seconds. Where Allen, a sophomore, will peak, is anyone’s guess.

“I’ve talked to Ahndraea about the Olympic trials, and at least qualifying for them,” Hart said. “The thing I have to remember with her is that she’s still learning the race. The outdoor 400 is more strategy which she’s still learning. I think the race she could be really good in is the 800 (meters). She came here as a pure sprinter, but she could turn out to be one of the best 800 runners in the country.”

Assistant coach Dion Gardner finds Allen’s mental approach as the most impressing aspect of the runner.

“Whatever the competition is, that’s how Ahndraea runs,” Gardner said. “She can compete against anybody.”

It is the third time that Allen has shattered the old 400-meter mark.

The Huskies 4×800 meter relay team wasn’t to be outdone, though. The squad ran a time of 9:10.39.

“The 4×800 meter team is very young, but the senior keeps them in line,” assistant coach Richard Hart said.

Sherman Hart concurred. “Joanne Merlain brings the attitude to the group, she’s like the mother hen,” Sherman Hart said. “What she says goes.”

The team’s overall attitude couldn’t be better at this point, according to Sherman Hart and Gardner.

“This team reminds me a little of the team that I was on during my freshman and sophomore year,” said Gardner, a member of the NU track team from 1994-98. “They bond well, and expect to win. That means they leave nothing on the track. It’s a level of confidence not often found. They’re confident in themselves, and confident in each other. The teammates feed off each other in that way.”

Hart agreed.

“I think every team has its own personality, and this one is that they really have no fear,” he said. “They simply don’t seem to care who they’re facing.”

That confidence was tested last weekend, as the team was facing some of America’s top (and biggest) collegiate track programs, such as North Carolina, Duke, Syracuse, Florida State, etc.

“One of the reasons we compete at that meet is to pit ourselves against that level of competition,” Sherman Hart said. “We’ve established ourselves as one of the best teams in New England, now we just have to do it on a national level.

“And people are taking notice,” he added. “Teams from Virginia, Carolina, and Florida have been asking us to come to meets at their schools.”

Other notable performances were turned in by freshman phenom Jordine Kimbrel (third in the 200-meter dash), freshman Zara Northover (fourth in the shot put), senior Ebony Jack (seventh in the 100-meter dash in 12.03 seconds) and the high jumping tandem of Nicole Parker and Janel Kozlowski (fourth and fifth place, respectively).

The team’s continued improvement at very high levels doesn’t have the coaching staff worried that they’ll peak before they have a chance to lay claim to the America East and New England championships as they did in the indoor campaign.

“That’s one thing I always guard against,” Sherman Hart said. “I’m always very conscious of it. For that reason, we’ve got to pull back a little and give the women some rest. They’ve ran three weeks in a row and ran very hard in those three meets.”

What greeted Sherman Hart upon his return to Huntington Ave., however, was far less pleasing. Coming from the 80 degree paradise of North Carolina, Hart was slapped in the face with the blustering, bitter cold wind.

“It was like instant frostbite,” the 15-year coach said. “For the girls, it’s a more difficult transition to come back and run in the cold again. It’s also draining being in the heat. We’re not used to it, so on the second day the Southern teams are a little less fatigued than us.”