NU Women Win Bronze at NCAAs

Fayetteville, Ark. ? Led by NCAA champions Priscilla Lopes and Ineta Radevica, the Nebraska women’s track and field team won bronze in the 2004 NCAA Indoor Championships with 45.5 points for its best finish at an indoor national meet since the Huskers won the title in 1984.

 

The Husker men finished tied for 19th place with 13 points. Louisiana State swept the men’s and women’s championships, winning the men’s race with 44.5 points, followed by a tie for second place between Arkansas and Florida with 38 points each.

 

Louisiana State won the women’s title with 52 points and Florida was second with 51 points, with a close race continuing throughout the meet. The 2004 meet marks the first time in eight years that the Husker women have claimed two indoor national champions in one season.

 

“I felt like we had a very good women’s team meet,” Head Coach Gary Pepin said. “We had some areas we didn’t do quite as well as we would have liked, but we had some areas where we did better than we thought, so I think it balanced out. The men’s team was just really young. Even the guys that didn’t make it to finals learned a lot from this meet.”

 

Radevica won her first career indoor national title in the triple jump with a leap of 44-10  ? on her first leap of the day. Radevica completed her pair, as she won the 2003 NCAA Outdoor title in the triple jump.

 

“It’s nice to be up there at the top this year,” Radevica said. “I felt sad yesterday after the long jump, and I just wanted to come out strong today. I didn’t get on the board on that first jump, but it was enough to win, and that is all that counts.”

 

Radevica has claimed nine All-America honors in her career and has placed in the top eight in both the long and triple jumps at the last four national championship meets over the last two years.

 

“I am really proud to see Ineta come back with pride and stature today after she wasn’t happy with her performance in the long jump yesterday,” Pepin said. “She had some jumps that were really far, but she got up too high and couldn’t get out. I think she was excited that she was able to win the triple jump.”

 

Junior Becky Breich took her best career finish in the indoor championships, winning silver with a personal-best tying throw of 56-10 ?. Breisch had an up and down day in the shot, throwing her best mark on her first attempt in the finals. The Edwardsburg, Mich., native fouled on four throws, but got the one that really counted to take second place.

 

Teammate Leann Boerema took 16th place overall with her toss of 50-1 ? on her final throw of the day. North Carolina’s Laura Gerraughty won the event, setting a new collegiate record with a mark of 62-10.

 

“I just wanted points for the team in this meet,” Breisch said. “Eight points was good. I set a personal best and that is the ultimate goal, to peak at the best meet of the season. It’s nice to know that all of your hard work was for a good reason.”

 

Ashley Selig took seventh place in the first pentathlon competition ever in the NCAA Indoor Championship meet with a career-best score of 4,054 points. Selig started off well in the 60-meter hurdles with a personal-best time of 8.72 to put her in fifth place. The Lincoln native also cleared 5-6 in the high jump and threw a mark of 32-7 ? in the shot put. She followed that up with a personal-best long jump of 19-5 ?. She ran away from the field in the 800 meters, winning it with a time of 2:14.39 to move into seventh place in the pentathlon.

 

Teammate Sara Jane Baker took 10th place in the pentathlon with a score of 3,848 to improve from the 16th-place ranking that qualified her for the meet. Baker set a personal best in the long jump with a leap of 18-7 ? and then in the next event ran a time of 2:17.40 in the 800 meters to win her heat and improve her positioning to 10th place overall.

 

Coming off a national-championship performance in the 60-meter hurdles on Friday night, Lopes took eighth place in the 60-meter dash in a time of 7.45 to solidify her second All-America honor in as many days.

 

Freshman Dmitrijs Milkevics took sixth place in the men’s 800 meters with his time of 1:48.97, to earn All-America status and score three points for the Huskers. Milkevics came on strong in the last 100 meters as he challenged for the fifth-place spot.

 

Na’Tassia Vice earned the second All-America honors of her career with her eighth-place finish in the women’s high jump. Vice cleared 5-9 ? on her first attempt at the height, but couldn’t quite make it over the bar at 5-11 ?.

 

Senior Brad Teeple also took an eighth-place finish in his first NCAA Championship experience. Teeple cleared a career-best height of 17-8 ? to score one point and earn All-America honors.

 

The men’s 4x400-meter relay finished ninth with a time of 3:09.99. Aaron Nasers had to replace Milkevics as the final leg on the relay team as Milkevics was suffering from an illness all day and was unable to run the final event. Freshman Andrew Pearson got off to a strong start, battling for first place in the first heat throughout the first 400 meters. Danny Hill maintained that second position and got an excellent hand off to Mark Harrison. Harrison got out quick and looked to challenge for the lead, but lost steam and Nasers finished the relay off running well, but falling to third in their heat.

 

Chris Richardson put on one of the most courageous performances of the day. The Boulder, Colo., native retained his eighth-place spot in the heptathlon after the 60-meter hurdles with his time of 8.32. Richardson had a stellar day in the pole vault, improving his career-best mark by six inches, clearing 15-1. On his second to last attempt at 15-5 he injured his hamstring, and had to pass on his final attempt.

 

Richardson refused to quit, however, as he ran the 1,000-meter run in 3:39.48 and finished his final lap with a standing ovation by the crowd. The senior dropped from eighth to 12th place in his final event, but finished with great pride.

 

“I’m not going to lie, I am extremely disappointed,” Richardson said. “I didn’t work for four and a half years to not finish. It was really special (the crowd’s standing ovation). I think they knew that it was the very best that I could do.”

 

The NCAA Indoor Championships can be seen on ESPN2 on Wednesday, March 17, at 2:30 p.m. Central time.

 

The Nebraska outdoor season will get underway next weekend when a handful of Huskers travel to College Station, Texas, for the Texas A&M Multis.