Ashley Keyes was not always someone her teammates looked up to and her coaches relied upon for leadership in practice.

During her freshman year, she was not running great times during conference championship meets. Instead, she was learning how to eventually accomplish these goals.

“As a freshman, there is a lot of temptation,” Keyes said. “You’ve got to change your life outside of the track.”

Assistant coach Dave Hegland, who has been one of Keyes’ mentors both on an off the track since she got to Syracuse, said that once her academics started to pick up last year, she started to see improvement.

Keyes is a senior this season and after struggling off and on the track early in her college career, she is the leader of a relay team that is expected to have great success.

“We see it all the time. Once the academics pick up and people get organized there, athletics almost always follow after,” Hegland said. “For us, sleep and diet are huge things and I think she improved both of those and starting to take herself a little bit more seriously as an athlete.”

Track is a sport that requires dedication at all times, not just during practices and races. As a freshman, Keyes said she struggled to resist parties and unhealthy food. It was hard for Keyes to lay off sundaes at the dining hall or pizza when gathering with friends.

But as a junior, Keyes was mature enough to resist the temptations and start reaching her goals.

“My proudest moments on the track would have to be at the Big East (conference championships) last year where I had personal bests,” she said.

Keyes ran a 12.03 second 100-meter dash in the race at the Big East championships last year, good for an eighth place finish.

Building off that performance, Keyes has the opportunity to be a leader for her team as a senior. Sabrina Cammock is one of the returning members of Keyes’ relay team, and as a junior, admires the senior for her work ethic.

“She is somebody I look up to,” Cammock said. “She already has two job offers and she works really hard.”

After running together last season, both Keyes and Cammock are strong candidates to run on the relay again this year. The relay is one of Keyes’ favorite races and she expects a lot out of the group this year.

Last year, Keyes didn’t think the relay team reached its full potential. But now both Keyes and Cammock think that making nationals is a possibility, not just a dream.

“Everyone is faster, everyone is stronger. We actually have a lot more people to choose from (for the relay team),” Cammock said.

All four runners from last year’s relay are back to run this season with the addition of transfers and freshmen threatening to take their spots.

Hegland said the competition has only increased the girls’ work ethics and is helping to make them faster, with the goal of making the final relay team.

“Ashley has run really great legs for us in the past on the 4X100-relay and I hope she’ll do the same this year,” Hegland said.

In addition to placing at the Atlantic Coast Conference championship meet in the 100-meter race, making nationals in the relay is Keyes’ biggest goal for her final season, the team’s first in the ACC.

Last year, in the Big East championships, she ran times that would have qualified if she were in the ACC. And Hegland said that in her first years of college, qualifying for a conference championship “would have been a very unrealistic goal.”

But not now, with a job waiting for her after graduation and her priorities in order, Keyes has matured and she can focus all her attention on running.

“Track is one of those sports where it’s not what you do on the track,” Keyes said, “but also what you do off the track that contributes to your success.”

Published on February 12, 2014 at 1:12 am