Two of a Kind
May 26, 2005 04:01 PM | General
May 26, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – There was a time when Jennifer Davis’ teammates on the WVU track team thought she was Superwoman. It seemed to them like she was running just about every race on the track -- sometimes performing the same event twice.
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| Jennifer and Susasn Davis are two of seven WVU athletes competing at this weekend's NCAA East regionals at Randall's Island near new York City.
WVU Sports Communications photo |
Then they realized that it wasn’t just Jennifer out there running all those races but instead it was also her identical twin sister Susan, who transferred to WVU after spending one semester at Marshall on a basketball scholarship. Susan says being an identical twin has its advantages.
“I think it makes us stand out more,” she said. “We’re probably more popular because we are twins.”
It also helps that the Romney, W.Va., natives are exceptional at what they do.
Jennifer has already earned a pair of All-American certificates as a member of the distance medley relay team. Susan also has one as a member of the same DMR team. The two have covered enough events to help West Virginia to back to back third-place finishes at the Big East and ECAC outdoor championships. Last fall, they helped the Mountaineers to their highest-ever finish at cross country nationals, placing 15th.
Now they are just two of seven WVU athletes still competing this weekend at NCAA regionals looking for the right to advance to NCAA nationals taking place in Sacramento, Calif., June 8-11.
Jennifer, a senior, is scheduled to run two events this weekend at Randall’s Island just outside of New York City. She has qualified in both the 5,000-meter run and the 3,000-meter steeplechase, while Susan will be competing with her sister in the steeplechase.
If Jennifer does well in the 5,000 on Friday she indicated she may pull out of Saturday’s steeplechase. Her time of 16:26.22 performed at Stanford earlier this spring is the fifth-fastest time entered for this weekend’s 5K race. It is also the only time she has run the 5,000 this spring.
“I didn’t feel like I was 100 percent prepared to run that at Stanford but I got a decent time,” she said. “Once I got my time then we trained shorter and then moved up. I’ve been lucky that I haven’t had to run more 5Ks throughout the season.”
Jennifer admits anything can happen this weekend with 36 performers on the track at the same time.
“It will thin out pretty quickly,” she said. “I ran at Stanford and there was a good many in that race. You’ve just got to make-do with the situation. I feel like I’m prepared for the race to go either slow or fast.
“I have really good speed for a 5,000-meter runner so that would not bother me,” she noted. “I hope in either situation that I don’t panic. My race at Stanford kind of went out slow and then kind of picked up. That way it favors milers who have the speed at the end.”
Teammates Megan Metcalfe and Tara Struyk will be competing alongside Jennifer in a very crowded 5,000.
“I want to run low 16s -- like 16:10,” said Jennifer. “Basically I’m hoping to run a pace that will make that possible. Then whoever is around me is around me.”
Susan has the 20th-best time in the steeplechase (10:38.92) going into regionals, nine places below Jennifer’s time of 10:28.45. WVU coach Jeff Huntoon said earlier this week that both can trim as much as 10 seconds off their best times, putting them in the hunt for a spot at nationals.
The top five performers automatically qualify and after that the next three finishers go into a pool to be considered for at-large berths. Because the East regional field in the 5,000 and the steeplechase have such a strong group of runners, Jennifer believes a top-eight placing will probably be good enough to advance in each event.
“That’s what we’re shooting for,” Jennifer said.
Because Susan is so new to the steeplechase, she says she still sometimes has difficulty doing the hurdling part of the race.
“I learned to hurdle last year by thinking it was sort of like going in for a lay up in basketball. Then I got it,” Susan said, admitting most of the time she just plows through the hurdles anyway.
“You don’t want to stutter and slow down going into it,” she said.
Susan has spent the past couple of years playing catch up to her sister. Both were basketball standouts at Romney High School and Susan had always dreamed of playing the sport in college. When the offer finally came it was something she couldn’t pass up on.
“Marshall was the first school to give me a scholarship,” she said. “It was Division I, full scholarship … I’ll take it.”
But Susan soon grew disenchanted with Marshall when there was a coaching change and decided to transfer to WVU where Jennifer was already making a name for herself on the cross country and track teams. Jennifer gave up on basketball because she thought she was “too small” to play it in college.
By the time Susan was able to run again she was already a year and a half behind her sister in training. “I’m really pleased to be at the level that I’m running at right now,” she admitted.
The two come from a very athletic family. Their father Stephen played football at Fairmont State and also ran track for the Falcons. Their mother Nancy was a cheerleader in high school who later took up tennis and road racing.
“They say you get your lung capacity from your mom,” said Jennifer. “She always thinks she didn’t contribute anything to us but she did.”
The sisters say their dad makes most of the meets and scours the Internet looking for the latest results and times. He still stays in pretty good shape and last beat them in a race when they were sophomores in high school.
“That’s the last time he’s run against us,” Susan laughed. “We don’t want him doing our workouts now.”
The twins get along remarkably well and have been together their entire lives except for Susan’s short stint at Marshall. They even share an off-campus apartment in Morgantown.
“If we fight it’s only for like two minutes and then we’re over it,” said Susan.
Jennifer says their mother laid out the ground rules early on, particularly when it came to boys. The two even majored in the same subject: elementary education. Jennifer’s emphasis is in English while Susan is interested in pre-school-aged children.
“My mom’s a kindergarten teacher,” said Susan.
Jennifer is coming back to WVU in the fall to continue her education in graduate school and plans to keep on running. Susan has another year of eligibility remaining and is happy to have her sister back as a training partner for next year.
“Jen is a lot like our dad who is real intense. It’s like living with a coach,” said Susan.
Both admit they are still tapping into their potential as runners. Each is also very supportive of the other.
“I think we’re beyond the point of being competitive toward each other,” Jennifer said. “We just kind of look at each other like any other runner.”
The two are anything but ordinary as far as runners go.
