Lopes Wins NCAA 60-Meter Hurdles Title

Fayetteville, Ark. ? Sophomore Priscilla Lopes won her first career NCAA title in the 60-meter hurdles in a Nebraska school-record time of 7.96 to lead the Husker women to fourth place after the first day of action at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., on Friday.

 

The Nebraska men are tied for 11th place after the first day of action with eight points. Arkansas leads the men’s race with 23 points, followed by Texas (21) and Florida (21). UCLA and Florida are tied for first place in the women’s race with 29 points, while Georgia is third (26) and Nebraska is fourth with 23.5 points on the day.

 

The 60-meter hurdle race got off to a strange start when Big 12 Champion Raasin McIntosh jumped before the gun and was disqualified from the race. Then the competitors got back in the blocks and were told to stand up because of a distraction in the area.

 

It didn’t take long for Lopes to take control of the race, however, as she ran away from the rest of the field in the last 10 meters. Lopes is Nebraska’s first women’s hurdle champion since Rhonda Blanford won the 55-meter hurdles at the 1985 NCAA Championships.

 

“When Raasin false started and everything that was going on, I just thought that I had to stay focused,” Lopes said. “I just kept my cool and did what I had to do to win the race. I just tried to get faster after every hurdle. I wanted to represent Nebraska and just do the best that I could. I couldn’t have done it without the support of my family, coaches, and teammates.”

 

The Whitby, Ontario, native also qualified for the finals of the 60-meter dash, which will take place at 7:15 p.m. Saturday night. Lopes ran a time of 7.33 to become the final qualifier for the finals with her eighth-place finish.

 

“Overall I thought it was a good day,” Head Coach Gary Pepin said. “Priscilla ran a marvelous race. We felt like she didn’t have much experience with great competition, but we knew what she was capable of doing.”

 

Senior Carl Myerscough won the silver in the men’s shot put with his throw of 66-3 on his third attempt of the day. The Hambleton, England, native led after the preliminaries and held that lead into the finals until Ohio State’s Dan Taylor threw a mark of 66-5 ? in his next to last attempt. Taylor improved that mark with his winning throw of 66-7 ?, and Myerscough had one final attempt to win his third consecutive national title, but his hopes fell short when he fell out of the circle for a foul.

 

“Carl just didn’t look like Carl today,” Pepin said. “I don’t know if he was tired from the World Championships, but he just didn’t look the same.”

 

Freshman Jenny Green tied for the bronze in the women’s pole vault, clearing 13-7 ?, to earn the first All-America honors of her collegiate career. Sophomore Christi Lehman  tied for ninth place, improving on her 14th-place finish a year ago, jumping 13-3 ?. Sophomore Jessie Graff finished 11th after clearing 12-11 ? on her first attempt at the height. She came close to clearing the 13-3 ? mark on her second try, but just skimmed the bar and wasn’t able to get over it on her last try.

 

Ineta Radevica and Angela Dies both scored for the Huskers in the women’s long jump, as Radevica won bronze with her leap of 20-7 ? on her final attempt of the meet. Radevica had an outstanding jump on her final attempt of the preliminaries that could have contended for the title, but was called for a foul.

 

“I felt really good today and I was as ready as I’ve ever been to jump a PR (personal record), but luck wasn’t on my side today,” Radevica said. “On five of my jumps I wasn’t on the board and on the one that I hit the board, I fouled, but that was my best jump. I am really upset about the long jump and I don’t know what to expect in the triple jump. We will have to wait and see.”

 

Dies, who only qualified for the national meet last weekend in the Last Chance Qualifier, was a nice surprise for the Huskers as she finished seventh with her 20-1 leap to score two points for Nebraska.

 

“It was great for Angela to come in as a freshman and do as well as she did,” Pepin said. “I don’t think Ineta was real happy with her third place, but they both picked up some points for us and did real well.”

 

Dmitrijs Milkevics set a new school record in the 800-meter run with his preliminary time of 1:47.82 for his third-place finish. Milkevics got out quick and in the second lap moved into third place and never relinquished that spot. The race got tight at the end, however, with a five-hundredths of a second split making the difference between first and third place.

 

Teammate Aaron Nasers was not as fortunate in the first heat of the 800 meters, running a time of 1:48.83 to be the first competitor left out of the finals with his overall ninth-place finish. Nasers started at the back of the pack and took the lead in the third lap, but started losing ground at the beginning of the final lap. He was forced to the middle of the pack and couldn’t fight his way out, finishing fourth in his heat.

 

Senior Chris Richardson opened the heptathlon in 10th place after running a time of 7.21 in the 60-meter dash to earn 809 points. The Boulder, Colo., native went on to jump a career-best mark of 23-4 in the long jump for 840 points to improve to fifth place.

 

Richardson was a half an inch off of a personal-best performance in the shot put, throwing it 41-10 to move into seventh-place in the competition. He finished the day in eighth place after clearing 6-4 in the high jump. Richardson will need another solid second day in the 60-meter hurdles, pole vault and 1,000-meter run to finish in a scoring position.

The women’s distance-medley relay team took 11th place, moving up from their 13th-place ranking coming into the meet, clocking a time of 11:25.08.

 

Oliver Williams Jr. and Dusty Stamer finished 11th and 12th, respectively, in the semifinals of the men’s 60-meter dash. Williams recorded a time of 6.75 in lane one, just ahead of Stamer’s 6.76 in lane three of the first heat.

 

Freshman Arturs Abolins finished 14th in the men’s long jump with a leap of 23-11 ? on his final jump of the day.

 

The second day of action in the NCAA Indoor Championships will get underway at 11 a.m. with the 60-meter hurdles in the women’s pentathlon. The meet will conclude with the men’s 4x400-meter relay at approximately 8:20 p.m. on Saturday evening.