NU Women Finish Third at Big 12 Championships

Lubbock, Texas ? Freshman Lara Crofford and junior Ari Goldstein each earned All-Big 12 honors while pacing the 30th-ranked Nebraska women’s cross country team to a third-place finish at the Big 12 Championship Friday afternoon. The men finished in 10th place led by a 23rd-place performance from senior Peter van der Westhuizen.

 

Colorado swept the team titles, with the women’s squad winning for the ninth consecutive season and the men earning their 12th title in 12 tries. Texas Tech’s Sally Kipyego (19:22) was the women’s individual champion, while Colorado’s Brent Vaughan led three Buffaloes in the top five with a winning time of 24:22 in the men’s race.

 

Crofford, competing in her first Big 12 meet, finished ninth in a time of 20:59. Goldstein finished in 14th place with a time of 21:23, after finishing 13th at last year’s championship to become the first Husker woman to earn a second all-conference honor since the inception of the Big 12 Conference, dating back to 1996.

 

Behind the all-conference performances of Crofford and Goldstein, the women finished third for the second consecutive season, marking just the second time in the Big 12 era NU has posted back-to-back top-three finishes at the conference meet. The Huskers also boasted a pair of All-Big 12 performers for the second straight season after never having more than one all-conference runner through the league’s first 10 seasons.

 

Junior Natalja Zarcenko (20th, 21:41) and Rachel Carizzales (23rd, 21:50) also finished among the top 25 in the field of 102, while junior Jennifer Pancoast rounded out NU’s team score with a 32nd-place finish in a time of 22:06.

 

Head Coach Jay Dirksen was pleased with the performance of the women’s team from top to bottom.

 

“The women ran really well, especially Lara Crofford, but the entire team was great,” Dirksen said. “Jen Pancoast picked off a lot of runners in the last 1,000 meters and really finished strong.”

 

On the men’s side, van der Westhuizen led the way.  The senior captain was unable to finish the 2005 conference meet due to injury, but saved his best Big 12 Championships for his final year. He finished in a time of 25:33 to mark a career-best 23rd-place conference finish, which also marked the highest individual men’s finish since James Bowler took home a 19th-place finish in 2002. The meet also marked the third time in four meets that van der Westhuizen was the Husker men’s top finisher.

 

Behind van der Westhuizen, the Husker freshmen ran extremely well, accounting for three of Nebraska’s five team scores. Finishing in the top 50 among 100 runners was freshman Todd Gulizia (38th, 26:01) and junior Kyle Custer (47th, 26:22), while freshmen Mikel Thomas (60th, 26:45) and Peter Falcon (62nd, 26:49) rounded out NU’s team score.

 

Dirksen noted that the men ran a great race, despite the 10th-place finish.

 

“The men ran the best they have all year and we’ve closed the gap a lot on the teams ahead of us,” Dirksen said. “It’s a shame we only finished 10th because we ran really well.”

 

Nebraska looks to be in solid shape heading into the NCAA Midwest Region meet, which takes place Saturday, Nov. 10 in Peoria, Ill. The Husker women finished fourth last season and the men were 13th.