Nebraska Set to Open Home Season with Holiday Inn Invite

Lincoln -- After a solid first outing, the <?xml:namespace prefix="st1" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"?>Nebraska track and field team returns home to play host to the Holiday Inn Invitational at the Bob Devaney Sports Center Indoor Track on Friday and Saturday. <?xml:namespace prefix="o" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"?>

 

The Huskers will run on their home track for the first of four home meets, including the Big 12 Indoor Championships in February.

 

The Holiday Inn Invitational will begin Friday at 3 p.m. with several field events, and the action on the track will get under way at 4 p.m. Competition will resume on Saturday at noon with track and field events and is scheduled to wrap up around 6:00 with the 200 meters.

 

The Huskers are well on their way to a fantastic season after just one week of competition, with three NCAA Indoor automatic qualifiers already in the bag. Jenny Green (pole vault), Becky Breisch (shot put) and Ineta Radevica (long jump) have all punched their tickets to the national meet. Four more Huskers have notched NCAA provisional qualifying marks.

 

Nebraska claimed 22 event titles in the Panther Open last weekend, including 12 by the women and 10 by the men. The NU women swept the field events, and took the top three spots in several other events.

 

Holiday Inn Invitational Meet Information

The Holiday Inn Invitational will feature athletes from nearly 30 schools, including Concordia, Nebraska Wesleyan, Nebraska-Kearney, Nebraska-Omaha, Barton County Community College and William Jewell. The meet will also include several unattached athletes, including former Nebraska athletes, such as Katherine Livesey, Vesna Kostic and Krisztina Kovesi.

 

The field events begin at 3 p.m. on Friday at the Bob Devaney Sports Center Indoor Track, while the men’s unseeded weight throw and shot put will take place at Nebraska Wesleyan.  All of the field events on Friday will be unseeded with the exception of the men’s and women’s weight throw and the long jump. The running events on Friday run from 4 p.m. until 8:30 p.m., featuring primarily distance events.

 

Saturday’s portion of the meet will begin at noon with the seeded field events and sprints, as well as the distance medley relay.

 

Results and meet recaps will be available Friday and Saturday at the conclusion of the meet and can be found at Huskers.com.

 

In the Dome

The Huskers started off the 2004 season strong, claiming wins in 22 of the 32 of the events at the Panther Open in the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

 

Becky Breisch and Ineta Radevica clinched NCAA automatic-qualifying marks in the shot put (54-5 1/4) and long jump (21-0 1/2), respectively. Both women won national titles at the 2003 outdoor championships.

 

Radevica’s leap in the long jump equaled her career-best mark and set a new UNI-Dome record. Sophomore Priscilla Lopes also set a new UNI-Dome record, running a time of 7.46 in the 60-meter dash. She also ran a personal-record time of 8.35 in the 60-meter hurdles to provisionally qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships.

 

On the men’s side, Chris Richardson scored a career-high 5,329 points to provisionally qualify for the national meet in the heptathlon. Richardson notched personal-best marks in three events at the Panther Open, including a time of 7.32 in the 60-meter dash, a long jump of 22-7 1/4, and a shot put throw of 41-7 1/4. His performance was the fourth-best mark in Nebraska school history.

 

Also having a solid meet for the Husker men was newcomer Dusty Stamer. Stamer won the 60-meter dash in 6.78 to lead Nebraska’s 1-4 finish. He also finished third in the 200-meter dash in a time of 22.25, behind Oliver Williams Jr. and Shelldon Simpson.

 

This Time Last Year

The Huskers claimed 11 event titles and four NCAA qualifying performances at the 2003 Holiday Inn Invitational.

 

On the opening day, Chris Burns (800 meters), James Bowler (3,000 meters) and Vesna Kostic (long jump) led Nebraska with wins in their events.

 

Becky Breisch unleashed a then-career best mark of 53-11 1/4 on day two, and the Huskers dominated the women’s triple jump, women’s pole vault, and the men’s 600-yard run.

 

Big 12 Standings

After only one week of action, Nebraska has already made its mark on the Big 12 Conference performance list. NU has 11 of the top marks in the league, including five by the men and six by the women.

 

Even more remarkable is that three of those 11 top marks have been set by freshmen. Daniel Roper has the conference-leading mark in the long jump with a leap of 24-3 1/4. Also leading the way are freshmen pole vaulters Jenny Green (13-9 1/4) and Gable Baldwin (16-11 3/4).

 

Other Huskers who lead the Big 12 in their events include Jason Thompson (Triple Jump), Chris Richardson (Heptathlon), Men’s 4x400-meter relay, Aaron Nasers (800-meter run), Ineta Radevica (Long Jump, Triple Jump), Na’Tassia Vice (High Jump), Becky Breisch (Shot Put) and Ashley Selig (Pentathlon).

 

Welcome to Nebraska, Here’s the Track

Nebraska earned the services of four newcomers at the semester break. Issar Yahzbin, Arturs Abolins, Aaron Nasers and Matt Senske have all joined the squad and will compete for the Huskers this season.

 

Abolins is a freshman long jumper from Riga, Latvia. The frosh competed for NU in the 60-meter dash at the Panther Open, taking third place in 6.88.

 

Nasers, a sophomore transfer from Western Michigan, also competed for the Huskers in Cedar Falls, taking second in the 800 meters in 1:54.41. The Kalamazoo, Mich., native currently sits on top of the Big 12 Conference performance list in the 800 meters.

 

The other two newcomers are freshmen throwers. Yahzbin has recorded a personal-best mark of 200 feet in the hammer throw, while Senske is a Papillion, Neb., native who throws the javelin.

 

Yahzbin, Abolins and Nasers are all scheduled to compete in the Holiday Inn Invitational.

 

Green Rewrites Pole Vault Record

Freshman Jenny Green wasted no time in setting a new standard for the Nebraska women’s pole vaulters. The Grand Island, Neb., native cleared a height of 13-9 1/4 at the 2004 Pole Vault Summit in Reno, Nev., to become Nebraska’s first NCAA automatic qualifier.

 

The mark crushed junior Christi Lehman’s previous record by five and one half inches set at the NCAA Indoor Championships in 2003. Green won the college women’s division of the Summit competition and her mark would have finished fifth at the 2003 NCAA Indoor Championships. Three of the four athletes that set a mark better than Green’s at the 2003 national meet were seniors last year.

 

NU Returns Four National Champs in 2004

Nebraska is the only Division I university that returns four 2003 NCAA individual national champions to its 2004 squad. The Huskers return Carl Myerscough (indoor and outdoor shot put), Eric Eshbach (outdoor pole vault), Ineta Radevica (outdoor triple jump) and Becky Breisch (outdoor shot put).

 

North Carolina comes the closest to Nebraska, returning three individual national champs from the 2003 season, including indoor shot put winner Laura Gerraughty.

 

The Huskers also return the services of seven All-Americans, including Kyle Odvody (high jump), Na’Tassia Vice (high jump) and Artur Wszelaki (javelin) in addition to the four national champions.

 

Huskers Ranked in Preseason Top 15

After a stellar 2003 season, the Nebraska men and women have claimed a spot among the preseason top 15 in the Trackwire rankings. The Husker women are ranked seventh along with North Carolina, while the men are tied at 14th with Indiana, Oklahoma and Wisconsin.

 

The Trackwire 25 is a power ranking which projects a hypothetical score for the NCAA meet, factoring injury reports and other variables supported by information gathered from coaches and NCAA-qualifying competitions.

 

The Louisiana State women and the Arkansas men are the heavy favorites to repeat as national champions in 2004. Each team returns two national champions, including one with multiple championships.