Huskers Team Up for Conference Challenge

Nebraska Track and Field Meet Day Information

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 Big 12 vs. Mountain West - Conference Challenge
 Saturday, Jan. 24 (1:30 p.m.) - Pepis Pack the House Event
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 Nebraska | Kansas State

 

 NWU Invitational
 Saturday, Jan. 24 (5:30 p.m.)
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 Nebraska | Kansas State

Lincoln - For the third straight year the No. 15 Husker men and No. 24 Husker women will host the Big 12 vs. Mountain West Conference Challenge meet at the Devaney Center Indoor Track. This year’s showdown will feature the Big 12 squad of Nebraska, Kansas State and Missouri against the Mountain West trio of Air Force, Colorado State and Wyoming. The previous two meets between the two conferences have been almost identical, with the Big 12 winning both, 223-144 in 2007 and 224-145 in 2008.<?xml:namespace prefix="o" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"?>

 

Each school will be able to enter a maximum of two athletes in each event, creating a six-athlete team for each conference. Only the top two athletes from each conference are able to score in the individual events, with the scoring as follows: 1st - 5 points, 2nd - 3 points, 3rd - 2 points, 4th - 1 points. In the relays, only two teams will earn points. The top team from one conference will earn 5 points and the top team from the other conference will earn 3 points.

 

The meet is scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 24, with the women’s weight throw staring the meet. The women’s long jump, high jump and pole vault will all start soon after at 1:45 p.m. The running events are scheduled to begin at 2 p.m., with the women’s 5,000-meter run.

 

Fans will also be treated to $1 admission and $1 Pepsi products, as Saturday will be a Pepsi Pack the House event.

 

Tickets can be purchased online at Huskers.com, by calling 1-800-8BIGRED, in person at the Nebraska Athletic Ticket Office or at the door. Live results will be provided at Huskers.com.

 

Following the Conference Challenge, Nebraska Wesleyan University will host the NWU Invitational the Devaney Center Indoor Track. Fans who paid to get into the Conference Challenge will not have to buy another ticket. All teams in the Conference Challenge will be competing, along with Nebraska Wesleyan and Northwest Missouri State.

 

Scouting the Conference Challenge

   - Kansas State (Men - No. 18 / Women - NR)

      2009 NCAA Qualifiers

         Sr. - Loren Groves: Women’s Weight Throw ? 68-6 1/2 (provisional)

            NCAA Ranking - No. 1 | Big 12 Ranking - No. 1

         Sr. - Scott Sellers: Men’s High Jump ? 7-2 1/4 (provisional)

            NCAA Ranking - No. 1 | Big 12 Ranking - No. 1

         So. - Michael Healey: Men’s High jump ? 7-0 1/4 (provisional)

            NCAA Ranking - Tied for No. 8 | Big 12 Ranking - No. 3

 

   - Missouri (Men - No. 23 / Women - NR)

      2009 NCAA Qualifiers

         Sr. - Chris Rohr: Men’s Weight Throw ? 70-4 1/4 (provisional)

            NCAA Ranking - No. 2 | Big 12 Ranking - No. 1

         Sr. - Krishna Lee: Women’s Shot Put ? 52-0 (provisional) &

                Weight Throw ? 62-10 1/2 (provisional)

            NCAA Ranking - No. 6 | Big 12 Ranking - No. 3

            NCAA Ranking - No. 8 | Big 12 Ranking - No. 2

 

   - Air Force (Men - NR / Women - NR)

      2009 NCAA Qualifiers

         Jr. - Melissa Beerse: Women’s Pole Vault - 12-11 3/4 (provisional)

            NCAA Ranking - Tied for No. 10 | Mountain West Ranking - No. 1

 

   - Colorado State (Men - NR / Women - NR)

      2009 NCAA Qualifiers

         Sr. - Alex Godell: Men’s Weight Throw - 64-3 (provisional)

            NCAA Ranking - Tied for No. 10 | Mountain West Ranking - No. 3

 

   - Wyoming (Men - NR / Women - NR)

      2009 NCAA Qualifiers

         Sr. - Jake Shanklin: Men’s Weight Throw - 69-11 (provisional)

            NCAA Ranking - No. 3 | Mountain West Ranking - No. 1

 

Pepsi Pack the House

On Saturday, Jan. 24, track and field fans will be treated to $1 admission and $1 Pepsi products at the Big 12 vs. Mountain West Conference Challenge at the Devaney Center Indoor Track.

 

Vaulting Through the Record Books

Sophomore Natalie Willer has now broken three pole vaulting records in the last two meets she has competed in. The Elkhorn, Neb., native started the 2009 season on a high note as she broke the NU indoor record in the pole vault with a leap of 13-9 3/4 at the Holiday Inn Invitational on Saturday, Jan. 17, breaking Jenny Green’s 2004 record of 13-9 1/4. The vault secured her a spot at the 2009 NCAA Indoor Championships in College Station, Texas, as it surpassed the NCAA automatic-qualifying standard of 13-9 1/4. For the performance, Willer was tabbed as the Big 12 Female Indoor Track & Field Co-Athlete of the Week, along with Destiny Hooker of Texas.

 

Going back to last season, breaking records is nothing new for Willer. She ended the 2008 season at the USATF National Junior Olympics, where she shattered the national youth and meet records with a vault of 13-9 3/4. Along with breaking Kira Costa’s 2003 national youth record of 13-5 1/4 by four and one-half inches, Willer demolished the meet record by over a foot, with the previous mark being set by Melissa Gergel, who vaulted 12-9 1/2 in 2007.

 

Qualifying Early and Often

The Nebraska track and field team came out of the gates blazing at the first meet of 2009, as six athletes posted NCAA qualifying marks. The team far ahead of where it was at one year ago, as it only produced one provisional qualifier following the first meet of 2008.

 

Pole vaulter Natalie Willer has already guaranteed her spot at the indoor championships with an NCAA automatic-qualifying vault of 13-9 3/4. Willer’s mark ranks her No. 1 in the Big 12 Conference and No. 3 in Division I.

 

On the women’s side, Willer is joined by provisional qualifiers Epley Bullock (high jump) and Kacie Sharp (shot put). The Husker men provisionally qualified three athletes at the Holiday Inn Invitational, including Paul Hamilton (high jump), Nicholas Gordon (triple jump) and Lehann Fourie (60-meter hurdles).

 

From Beijing to Lincoln

Track and field fans will be in for a special treat on Saturday, Jan. 24, as they will be able to watch 2008 Olympic bronze medalist Priscilla Lopes-Schliep run the 60-meter hurdles at the NWU Invitational.

 

A former NCAA indoor national champion, Lopes-Schliep also earned multiple NCAA All-America honors and Big 12 championships at Nebraska. With her trip to the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games, she became the first Husker in Nebraska’s storied history of track and field on women’s side to make a trip to the Games in the hurdles. She also was the first Husker on the men’s or women’s side to win an Olympic medal in the hurdles.

 

Going back to the 1968 Games in Mexico City, the Huskers have had at least one current or former athlete win an Olympic medal in track and field at every Olympic Games except the 1972 (Munich), 1988 (Seoul) and 2004 (Athens) Games. Lopes-Schliep’s medal was the first track and field medal for Team Canada since the 1996 Olympics Games in Atlanta, when Donovan Bailey won the 100-meter gold and was part of the 4x100 relay win.

 

The women’s 60-meter hurdles are set for 6:15 p.m. on Saturday.

 

Winning Attitude

The 2009 Husker women’s freshmen class knows the taste of victory as the 10 newcomers combined to win 54 state championships and four Canadian provincial championships in high school. The 2008 class was ranked No. 10 ranked recruiting class in the country by Track and Field News.

 

The winning attitude of the new crop of athletes has transitioned to the collegiate level as two of the newcomers posted victories to start the season. Blaire Dinsdale from North Tama High School in Traer, Iowa, and Erica Hamik from Kearney Catholic High School in Kearney, Neb., posted their first collegiate victories at the Holiday Inn Invitational.

 

After finishing runner-up in the 800 meters on Friday, Jan. 16, Dinsdale came back strong on Saturday in the 600-yard run to win her first collegiate event, just beating out fellow freshman teammate Suzanne Higgins. Hamik posted her first win in the 1,000 meters on Saturday, beating out a field full of upperclassmen.

 

Raising the Bar

Nebraska junior Epley Bullock is already on the path to her third straight indoor NCAA All-America honor in the women’s high jump. At the Holiday Inn Invitational, the returning Big 12 indoor champion posted an NCAA provisional-qualifying leap of 5-10, ranking her tied for sixth in Division I and No. 2 in the Big 12 Conference. After the clearance at 5-10, Bullock raised the bar to 6-1 1/4, which would have been a new lifetime best and NCAA automatic-qualifying jump, but she was unable to clear. Bullock finished ninth (fifth American) as a freshman in 2007 at the national indoor meet, before placing seventh in 2008.

 

Huskers Ranked in Top 25

On Thursday, Jan. 8, the USTFCCCA (United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association) released its 2009 indoor track and field preseason rankings. The Nebraska men’s team entered the season ranked No. 15 while the women’s squad  ranks No. 24. Both are improvements from the 2008 indoor season as the men finished the year tied for 17th with Georgetown while the women were unranked.

 

Overall, the Big 12 Conference once again showed why it is one of the premier conferences for track and field in the country with 11 teams ranked in the top 25. The women have four teams in the top 25, including No. 1 ranked Texas A&M. On the men’s side, the conference has the most teams ranked in the top 25 of any conference with seven, including top-15 ranked Texas A&M (6th), Texas (7th), Texas Tech (12th) and Nebraska (15th).

 

The first regular season rankings will be released on Wednesday, Jan. 28, and updated every Wednesday until March 17.

 

Flash Gordon

Husker sophomore Nicholas Gordon started his bid for the 2009 NCAA Indoor Championship with a win and NCAA provisional-qualifying mark in the triple jump at the Holiday Inn Invitational on Saturday, Jan. 17. Gordon’s jump of 50-7 1/4 was an indoor personal-best, pacing the Huskers to a 1-2 finish, as freshman Chris Phipps finished runner-up with a leap of 49-9.

 

The Husker duo ranks No. 1 and 2 in the Big 12, with Gordon tied for the No. 10 spot in Division I.

 

Pepin Primed for 2009

Nebraska Head Coach Gary Pepin returns in 2009 for his 29th season as the head coach of the women’s team and his 26th season as the head coach of both the men’s and women’s programs. In 2008, Pepin tied Frank Sevigne as the longest tenured head coach in the history of the Nebraska program, and Pepin is still at the top of his game for coaching athletes to the highest levels of competition.

 

Of the seven NCAA All-America honors brought home by Huskers in 2008, three were personally trained by Pepin in the jumps area, including eight-time All-American Dusty Jonas, who won the 2008 indoor high jump national championship and went on to earn a spot on Team USA at the 2008 Beijing Games. Overall, Pepin sent seven jumpers to the NCAA Championships, including two true freshmen in Nicholas Gordon (long jump) and Paul Hamilton (high jump).

 

Double Dipper

As the lone senior on the men’s throws squad, Keith Lloyd returns in 2009 following an impressive 2008 outdoor season where he participated in both the shot put and the hammer throw at the NCAA Outdoor Championship.  Lloyd was hampered by a hand injury during the 2008 indoor season and was forced to redshirt.

 

The Omaha, Neb., native has started 2009 strong as ever, winning the men’s weight throw (61-0 3/4) on Friday, Jan. 16, before returning the next day to win the shot put (57-3 3/4) at the Holiday Inn Invitational. Lloyd’s winning toss of 57-3 3/4 in the shot put was an indoor personal-best, ranking No. 1 in the Big 12 and No. 16 on the Nebraska all-time indoor performance list.

 

Multi-Event Machine

Husker women Megan Wheatley (junior/sophomore), Chantae McMillan (sophomore/junior) and Rachel Butler (sophomore) make up one of the toughest multi-event groups in not just the Big 12 Conference, but in the nation. All three scored at both the indoor and outdoor Big 12 Championships, Wheatley won the 2008 outdoor conference heptathlon title and both Wheatley and McMillan competed at the 2008 NCAA Outdoor Championships in the heptathlon.

 

The trio will have high expectations in 2009 as Wheatley was recovering from injury during the 2008 indoor season, but still managed to post an NCAA-automatic qualifying score and finish second at the indoor conference meet in the pentathlon. Butler, just a freshman, was adjusting to college competition and McMillan was in her first year as a multi-eventer after qualifying for 2007 NCAA Outdoor Championship in the long jump.

 

In 2009 the Big Red will look to continue its dominance at the conference meets, where it has won four straight outdoor heptathlon titles and two of the past four indoor pentathlon crowns, adding an indoor national title in the pentathlon by Ashley Selig in 2005.

 

The group will get its first shot at the pentathlon at the Frank Sevigne Husker Invitational on Friday, Feb. 6 - Saturday, Feb. 7, at the Devaney Center Indoor Track.

 

Hulett Hungry for More

Most collegiate track and field athletes would be more than satisfied to be a four-time NCAA All-American, but not Nebraska junior sprinter Lukas Hulett, who has already achieved the feat in his first two years at Nebraska.

 

After reaching All-America status in the indoor 400-meter dash and as a member of the indoor 4x400-meter relay as a freshman in 2007, Hulett returned to earn All-America honors in the indoor and outdoor 400 meters in 2008.

 

Last season, Hulett became the first Husker on the men’s side to earn NCAA All-America honors in the 400 meters indoors and outdoors in the same season and was the first Husker to achieve the feat since 1993 when Shanelle Porter won the indoor national title and finished fourth at the outdoor championships.

 

In just two seasons, Hulett has won 10 medals at the Big 12 Championships, including third-place finishes in the 400 meters at the indoor and outdoor championships in 2008.

 

Hulett started the 2009 season with a win in the 200 meters at the Holiday Inn Invitational, posting a personal-best time of 20.39, moving to the No. 10 spot on the Huskers’ all-time indoor performance list.

 

Big Red Aims to Hit Century Mark at College Station

With a conference title in 2009 at the Big 12 Indoor Championships on Feb. 28 at College Station, Texas, the Nebraska track and field team will hit the century mark in conference team titles. The Huskers have been the most dominant team in conference history over the past 111 years, totaling 99 team titles and 827 individual titles. In the Big 12 alone, the Huskers have won 143 individual titles and a league-best 20 team titles in the 12-year history of the conference.

 

Huskers Add Three at Semester

The Nebraska track and field team added three athletes to the 2009 squad prior to the spring semester with the additions of Nandi Meyer (middle distance), Bj?rn Barrefors (multis) and Lorena Mengia (high jump).

 

Lorena Menghia - Fr./So., Isai, Romania (Athletic High School / Jacksonville State)

A native of Iasi, Romania, Lorena Menghia (pronounced laur-AA-nah Men-GEE-uh) transferred to Nebraska after one season at Jacksonville State in Jacksonville, Ala., where she was the 2008 Ohio Valley Conference champion in the outdoor high jump with a clearance of 5-6. Menghia set the outdoor school record earlier in the 2008 season with a personal-best outdoor leap of 5-8 3/4 at the Coach O Invitational in Troy, Ala. She placed third in the triple jump at the outdoor conference meet with a school-record and personal-best leap of 40-3 1/4. Menghia cleared a lifetime best in the high jump at the 2006 Romanian indoor championships in Bucuresti, Romania, with a jump of 6-0 1/2 to finish runner-up, ranking her No. 12 on the under-20 world indoor list. She cleared an outdoor personal best of 5-10 3/4 four times between 2005 and 2007, ranking her No. 22 in the world on the outdoor under-18 list in 2005, while ranking No. 48 in 2006 and No. 54 in 2007 on the under-20 world outdoor list.

 

Bj?rn Barrefors - Fr., Skara, V?sterg?tland, Sweden (Teknikum)

Bj?rn Barrefors (pronounced Ba-YUHORN BAR-eh-FORSH) joined Nebraska after winning the 2008 Swedish senior championship in the indoor heptathlon (personal-best score of 5,577) and outdoor decathlon after finishing third in both events the previous year. Barrefors posted a personal-best decathlon score of 7,405 at the 2008 European Cup in Jyv?skyl?, Finland, to finish seventh. He ranked No. 14 on the under-20 world list in 2006 with a decathlon score of 7,012, while also finishing 11th in the junior decathlon at the 2006 IAAF World Junior Championships in Beijing, China, with a score of 7,332.

 

Nandi Meyer - Fr., Kempton Park, Guateng, South Africa (Kempton Park)

Nandi (pronounced NAHN-dee) Meyer joins Nebraska as a middle distance runner from Kempton Park, Guateng, South Africa, South Africa, where she broke onto the track and field scene in 2005 with the top South African under-16 times in the 800 (2:10.16) and 1,500 (4:28.78) meters, also ranking No. 10 on the under-16 world list in the 800 meters and No. 11 in the 1,500 meters in 2005. Meyer posted a personal-best 800-meter time of 2:08.10 in 2006, ranking No. 1 on the South African under-18 list and No. 34 in the world, while running a personal-best 400 meters in Sasolburg, Free State, South Africa, to rank No. 3 on the South African under-18 list in 2006. She recorded 2007 season bests of 56.39 in the 400 meters and 2:08.9 in the 800 meters in Germiston, Gauteng, South Africa, ranking No. 3 in both events on the 2007 South African under-18 list and No. 41 on the 800-meter under-18 world list. Meyer competed in the 800 meters at the 2005 IAAF World Youth Championships in Marrakech, Morocco, and the 2007 championships in Ostrava, Czech Republic.

 

Dynamite Dailey

Hurdler Adam Dailey returns for his sophomore season in 2009 as one of the top 400-meter hurdlers in the Big 12 Conference. Dailey was one of the biggest surprises for the Huskers during the 2008 season, as the Wahoo, Neb., native earned Big 12 medals at the indoor (600-yard run) and outdoor (400-meter hurdles) conference championships while also earning a trip to the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 400-meter hurdles. Dailey shot up to No. 3 all-time outdoors at Nebraska in the 400 hurdles with a time of 50.33 at the NCAA Midwest Regional to finish fourth.

 

Dailey actually had no plans to run track at the collegiate level out of high school and was planning on only attending school at Nebraska. After seeing Dailey run at the 2007 Nebraska State Track and Field meet, Hurdles Coach Billy Maxwell offered Dailey a chance that he has not regretted.

 

 The former Bishop Neumann Cavalier made the most of his opportunity, ranking No. 5 in the 400-meter hurdles on the under-20 world list in 2008. If Dailey can earn NCAA All-America honors in the 400 hurdles during the 2009 season, he will be the first Husker on the men’s side to earn the honor since Mark Jackson in 1992.

 

Crofford Leads the Pack

Following a freshman season that saw her win four Big 12 Championship medals and make a trip to the NCAA Outdoor Championships, sophomore Lara Crofford is expected to lead the Husker distance squad in 2009 season. Crofford was a welcome addition during the 2008 indoor season as she finished third in the 5,000-meter run and eighth in the 3,000-meter run at the conference indoor meet.

 

The Newville, Pa., native exploded during the outdoor season, posting the second-best time in Husker history in the 10,000-meter run at the Stanford Invitational with a time of 33:56.46, Sammie Resh Gdowski (1990) owns the top time at 32:34.71. Even more impressive may have been her pair of races at the Big 12 Outdoor Championship in Boulder, Colo. On May 16, Crofford finished second in the 10,000-meter before finishing third in the 5,000-meter run just two days later. Crofford was the top scorer for NU on the women’s side with 14 points, helping the women to a runner-up finish with 105 points. Crofford capped her freshman year with a trip to the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 10,000-meter run.