Huskers Begin Postseason at Big 12 Championships

After one of the most successful regular seasons in recent years, the Husker men’s and women’s cross country teams will look to achieve their postseason goals beginning this Friday with the Big 12 Championships in Lawrence, Kan.

 

For the first time in Big 12 history, the conference meet will be held at the Rim Rock Farm (directions at the bottom), with the women’s 6K starting at 10 a.m., and the men’s 8K following at 11 a.m.

 

“Our goal is to finish as high as we can, and the good thing is that I think we have better teams on both sides than we did last year, quite a bit better actually,” Head Coach Jay Dirksen said. “We have to build on what we did last year and just keep getting better and better and take that into this week.”

 

The Husker men and women combined for four meet titles this regular season and eight top-10 finishes. Most recently, Nebraska came home with impressive sixth (women) and 11th- (men) place showings at the Chile Pepper Festival in Fayetteville, Ark., on Oct. 14. All five squads that finished ahead of the NU women are nationally ranked, and the men’s position was five spots higher than at the 2005 Chile Pepper Festival.

 

So far, the 2006 season has seen underclassmen perform like veterans and experienced juniors and seniors step up in clutch situations.

 

Sophomore Ari Goldstein has been the backbone of the women’s success, as she has finished as the team’s top runner in three of the six meets this season, including back-to-back individual titles to start the season at the Creighton/UNO Classic and Woody Greeno/Nebraska Invitational. That achievement marked Goldstein as the first Husker women’s runner to win consecutive races since former three-time All-American Fran ten Bensel accomplished the feat in 1992. At the 2005 Midwest Regional, Goldstein placed 10th with a career-best 6K time of 21:14, just one spot away from qualifying for the NCAA Championships.

 

Close behind Goldstein has been junior Channing Anseth, a 2005 transfer from St. CloudState who competed in only three meets last season for the Huskers. Anseth was the women’s first finisher at both the Roy Griak Invitational and Chile Pepper Festival, where she placed an impressive 25th overall in a career-best 6K time of 21:06.8 against a very talented field.

 

Lone senior co-captain Kim Pancoast has been a sleeper for the Huskers as she was held out of the first two meets for training reasons, but is now coming on strong. Her best performance this season was a seventh-place finish at the South Dakota State Invitational in a career-best 5K time of 17:46.30.

 

Sophomore Brian Parr has stepped into a leading role for the Nebraska men as junior Peter van der Westhuizen has continued his battle with injuries this season. Parr finished 41st overall at the Chile Pepper Festival two weeks ago to mark the third time he has led the Huskers in the 2006 season. His 10K time of 30:24.5 was nearly two minutes faster than his best 10K time as a freshman in 2005. A native of South Africa, van der Westhuizen has dealt with compartment syndrome since last season but has still been a force for the Big Red. The junior finished 25th at the 2005 Big 12 Championships and has been the Huskers’ top finisher in every race he has competed in over this two-year career except two.

 

Sophomore Kyle Custer has shown drastic improvement since his freshman season and took first at the Creighton/UNO Classic to start the season. Following the solid start, Custer has followed Parr and van der Westhuizen by finishing in the top three on the team in all but one meet, when junior Alec Maduza was the third finisher for NU at the Chile Pepper Festival. Maduza rejoined the Husker cross country team after attending the University of Wisconsin in the fall of 2005. He has made an immediate impact, finishing third overall at the Creighton/UNO Classic behind Custer and senior captain Bryce Dickmeyer, who was second.

 

Noting the 2006 Huskers:

The 2006 Husker women’s cross country team is one of the best in recent years. Ranked fifth in the Midwest Region (USTFCCCA Poll) throughout this season, Nebraska has won two meet titles (Creighton/UNO Classic and Nebraska/Woody Greeno Invitational) and placed at the top 10 in every meet this year. Most recently, the Husker women were sixth at the Chile Pepper Festival in Fayetteville, Ark., with all five teams finishing ahead of NU being nationally-ranked squads.

 

The 2006 Nebraska men have continued a steady line of improvement that the program has seen over the past three years following last year’s 10th-place finish at the Big 12 Championships. This year’s team placed 11th at the 33-team Chile Pepper Festival, finishing ahead of three Big 12 teams in Texas Tech, Texas A&M and KansasState. Nebraska started the season by winning the Creighton/UNO Classic and Nebraska/Woody Greeno Invitational team titles.

 

Scouting the Big 12 Women

The University of Colorado has won every Big 12 Championship with the exception of 1998 (KansasState) during the conference’s 11-year existence. Among Friday’s field, there are two teams that are ranked in the Oct. 23 USTFCCCA Poll in No. 10 Colorado and No. 30 Baylor. Two weeks ago, the Husker women received votes in the poll but never reached the top 30.

 

Scouting the Big 12 Men

The Colorado men have won every Big 12 Championship since the conference began in 1996 and are currently ranked second in the nation (USTFCCAA Poll). Kansas is also in the poll at No. 19. The Huskers defeated three conference teams (Texas Tech, Texas A&M and Kansas State) in their last meet, the Chile Pepper Festival, and are ranked 15th in the Midwest Region.

 

Nebraska Historically at the Big 12 Championships

The Husker women own four top-five finishes at the Big 12 Championships, including last year’s fifth-place finish in Waco, Texas. At the 2005 meet, NU scored 117 points, the second-best total to its 92 points in 1997, when it was runner-up.

 

The men have also a high finish of second place at the Big 12 Championships. In 1996, the Huskers finished only behind Colorado with 70 points, as Jonah Kirtarus was crowned NU’s only individual Big 12 champion.

 

Last Year: Tranel Leads Huskers at Big 12 Championships

Senior tri-captain Kayte Tranel led all Nebraska runners with a 15th-place individual finish to earn All-Big 12 status and lead the women to a fifth-place team finish, while Peter van der Westhuizen placed 25th to lead the men to a 10th-place finish at the 2005 Big 12 Cross Country Championships.

 

“I was very pleased with our total team performance,” Dirksen said.  “We met our expectations, and while those are not where we want to be in the future, this program took a major step ahead from where we were at this time a year ago.  With so many young, inexperienced runners we are proud to have made so much progress this fall.”

 

Tranel’s time of 21:25 in the women’s 6K edged out Eva Tomakova of OklahomaState for the final spot on the All-Big 12 team, marking the first time since 1998 and 1999 that the women have placed a runner in the top 15 in back-to-back seasons, after Anne Shadle’s 15th-place finish at last year’s Big 12 Championships. The top-five team placing is also the Husker women’s highest since 1999, when they placed fourth.

 

The Husker women used a total team effort, as Ari Goldstein was just behind Tranel in 17th with a career-best time of 21:31. Channing Anseth (28th, 22:00), Natalja Zarcenko (32nd, 22:21) and Betsy Miller (38th, 22:42) made it five top-40 finishes for the Big Red. Zarcenko and Miller’s times were career bests.

 

“Kayte Tranel, although battling some respiratory problems, finished very well,” Dirksen said.  “Ari Goldstein was in the top 12 with 1,000 meters to go and, although she faded a little bit, she managed a very respectable 17th place as a true freshman.  Channing Anseth looked like a veteran in her second race of the season, and Natalja Zarcenko ran her best race of the season by far.  Betsy Miller really stepped it up a notch this weekend also. Her performance had a great deal to do with us overcoming the problems Kim Pancoast experienced due to her injury.” 

 

Joslyn Dalton (23:02) and tri-captain Kim Pancoast (23:16) were the final scoring finishers for NU in 52nd and 58th places.

 

The men’s 10th-place team finish behind van der Westhuizen’s career-best 8K time of 24:29, which was more than 40 seconds better than his previous best from the year, helped the Huskers climb two spots in the team standings after back-to-back years of finishing 12th at the Big 12 meet.

 

The Fremont, Neb., duo of Brian Parr and co-captain Bryce Dickmeyer were the second and third NU men’s runners to finish, as Parr was 66th in a career-best time of 26:05 and Dickmeyer was 74th in a season-best 26:20. Chris Clymer ran his best race of the year and placed 81st in a career-best 26:33, just ahead of co-captain Aaron Nasers in 86th (26:55) and Kyle Custer, who ran a career-best 27:05 in 89th.

 

“Peter ran his best 8K race of the season,” Dirksen said. “He has been trying to overcome an injury that he suffered in practice over a week ago, so his effort was even better than it might look.  The rest of the men were solid also, and Parr and Clymer ran very well, especially in the last half of the race.”

 

Review: Huskers Run Well in Arkansas

The Husker women solidified their spot as one of the top teams in the Midwest, while Nebraska’s men ran one of their best team races in recent years on Oct. 14 at the Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival in Fayetteville, Ark.

 

The Nebraska women raced to a sixth-place team finish, while the men added a solid 11th-place showing in a talent-laden field.

 

Junior Channing Anseth led the Husker women for the second time this year with a 25th-place finish in the women’s 6K. Anseth’s time of 21:06.8 was a career best, and she was one of seven Huskers to place in the top 100. Six of those NU women were clocked in career-best times to help the Huskers finish ahead of Big 12 competitors Texas (12th), IowaState (13th) and KansasState (23rd). All five teams that finished ahead of the Huskers in the team standings were nationally ranked.

 

“Channing Anseth ran fantastic,” Dirksen said. “It was probably the best our women have run all year. All five teams that beat us are very good teams.”

 

Sophomore Ari Goldstein contributed a 37th-place showing, while Betsy Miller gave the Huskers three runners in the top 50 with her 44th-place finish.

 

Sophomore Brian Parr’s 10K time of 30:24.5 in the men’s competition was nearly two minutes faster than his time last year at the Chile Pepper Festival. He placed 41st to lead the Huskers. Parr finished 12 spots ahead of junior teammate Peter van der Westhuizen, who was 53rd in 30:51.0.

 

“Brian Parr put in a big-time effort today,” Dirksen said. “He is really coming around and all his hard work is paying off. But the entire men’s team did well. We had some great performances and have really come a long way and made a lot of improvements since this meet last year.”

 

Junior Alec Maduza also placed in the top 100 in 95th in 31:34.9, as the men defeated conference opponents Texas Tech (14th), Texas A&M (18th) and KansasState (24th) in the 33-team field.

 

Rim Rock Farm

Rim Rock Farm, the site of Friday’s Big 12 Championships, has been home to the University of Kansas cross country teams since 1974. Owned by former Kansas head cross country coach Bob Timmons, the course hosted the Big Eight Cross Country Championships three times (1983, 1991 and 1995), as well as the 1998 NCAA Division I and II Cross Country Championships. The course is also used annually for Kansas high school state meets.

 

Kansas notes the course as being “unusual and challenging.” It features a covered bridge, turns and hills that are named after former Kansas cross country runners.

 

The Big 12 Championships are free for the public to attend.

 

Directions (from www.kuathletics.com):

Those traveling to Rim Rock from the Kansas Turnpike are advised to take the East Lawrence exit and then travel north on Kansas Highway 24/59 (which curves to the west) for approximately two and one-half miles before turning right (north) on the asphalt road at the Midland Store. Approximately four and one-half miles later, watch for a natural gas pump station and make a left turn (west) at that point onto a gravel road. About one-quarter of a mile ahead, make a right turn and follow the gravel road approximately one and one-third miles (north) to the course.