Lloyd Brings Big 12 Title Back to Lincoln

College Station, Texas ? After winning three individual titles on day one of the Big 12 Indoor Championships, the Nebraska track and field team returned to the McFerrin Athletic Center to win one more individual Big 12 title, while producing 24 other medalists.

 

Overall, the Husker men finished second to Texas for the second straight year, scoring 102.5 points to Texas’ 115. The Husker men have now finished first or second at every indoor conference meet since 1987. The Husker women finished third with 96.5 points, trailing meet champion Texas A&M (130) and runner-up Texas Tech (103.5).

 

Senior co-captain Keith Lloyd won the first Big 12 title of his career with a personal-best throw of 59-4 1/4 in the men’s shot put, shattering his previous best of 58-0 1/2 by nearly 16 inches. Lloyd entered the finals with the top throw in the competition, tossing 58-5 3/4 on his first attempt of the meet. In the first round of the finals, freshman Luke Pinkelman of Iowa State took the lead with a toss of 58-8 3/4, but Lloyd came roaring back on his first final’s attempt with the winning toss of 59-4 1/4. The win was the first conference title for the men in the shot since Carl Myerscough won back-to-back titles in 2003-04.

 

Lloyd was joined in the top three by teammate Trey Jordan, who entered the meet ranked ninth in the Big 12 with a season best of 54-5 1/2, as he had struggled all season to reach a quality mark due to fouling troubles. Throws Coach Mark Colligan and Jordan switched from a spin technique to a glide technique, reducing his chance of fouling on throws. The move paid off as Jordan finished third with a personal-best toss of 57-7, improving on his seventh-place finish in 2008.

 

The Husker 60-meter hurdlers kicked off day two with three All-Big 12 performances, including Kirkland Thornton and Lehann Fourie finishing second and third on the men’s side, while Arna Erega finished third in the women’s race. Thornton crossed the finish line in second with a personal-best time of 7.76, improving on his previous best of 7.78 and securing him the No. 8 spot in Division I. Fourie finished two-hundredths of a second later with a time of 7.78 to take third, as the two combined to score 14 points. Erega followed with a third-place performance of 8.47 in the women’s race, improving on her seventh-place finish from a year ago.

 

In the men’s heptathlon, the multi-crew of Skyler Reising, Bj?rn Barrefors and Pat Burke entered day two slotted 4-5-9, respectively, trailing day-one leader Trinity Otto of Texas A&M. Barrefors made his presence felt immediately with personal-best time of 8.08 in the 60-meter hurdles to score 962 points, propelling him to the top of the standing with 4,118 total points. Reising slipped the seventh with a time of 8.80, while Burke stayed in ninth with a time of 8.56.

 

The three then moved to the pole vault, an event that both Barrefors and Burke excel at, as each ranked in the top-eight overall in the conference entering the championships. Barrefors kept his lead with a vault of 15-7, scoring 834 points and increasing his overall total to 4,952, just 50 points ahead of Moritz Cleve of Kansas State entering the final event of the heptathlon, the 1,000-meter run. Burke also cleared 15-7, bumping him up two spots to No. 7 with a total of 4,684 points, while Reising slipped to eighth with 4,636 points following a vault of 13-11 1/4.

 

Barrefors ended the heptathlon with a time of 2:53.69 in the 1,000 meters, scoring 727 points to land a two-day total of 5,679, eclipsing the NCAA automatic-qualifying standard of 5,650. Burke ran 2:47.01 to score 797 points, pushing him to a sixth-place finish and a season-best 5,481 points, moving him to No. 13 in Division I. Reising ended the meet in eighth with 5,444 points, after scoring 795 points with a time of 2:47.19. Reising had already posted a better score this year of 5,485 points at the Frank Sevigne Husker Invitational, ranking No. 12 in Division I. With Barrefors now automatically qualified, along with Burke and Reising ranked in the national top 15, it is possible that all three will return to College Station in two weeks for the NCAA Championships.

 

In the jumps, the Huskers saw three men and four women score, adding 18.5 points to the women’s total and six points to the men’s total.

 

Audrey Svane and Epley Bullock split runner-up honors in the women’s high jump with a clearance of 5-8. Svane was clean through the first three bars, before she was unable to clear 5-10. Bullock passed at the first height, then cleared the next two bars on her first attempts, before also failing at the 5-10 bar. Lorena Menghia rounded out the trio with a jump of 5-6, tying for fifth with four other jumpers. Texas’ Destinee Hooker won the high jump with a meet-record jump of 6-4. In the triple jump, junior Leandra McGruder cleared 41-9 3/4 to finish seventh, the first time she has scored in the indoor triple jump after scoring three times in the long jump.

 

On the men’s side of the high jump, Paul Hamilton finished sixth with a jump of 6-10 3/4. Hamilton was joined on the award stand by fellow sophomores Brandon Sheppard and Sam Haase, who tied for seventh with a clearance at the 6-8 3/4 bar.

 

Junior Lukas Hulett scored in the men’s 400-meter dash for the third consecutive year, finishing fourth with a time of 46.83. Hulett finished sixth as a freshman in 2007, followed by a third-place finish at home in 2008.

 

Sophomore Lara Crofford and junior Kyle Custer earned Big 12 medals with sixth-place finishes. After finishing second in the 5,000 meters last night, Crofford returned to run a personal-best time of 9:33.57 in the 3,000-meter run. The time provisionally qualified Crofford for the NCAA championships, while also topping her previous best of 9:42.80. Custer matched his personal-best in the mile run to finish sixth with a time of 4:07.61, earning the Cambridge, Neb., native his first individual Big 12 medal. Custer previously earned All-Big 12 honors last season as a member of the eight-place distance-medley relay.

 

In the middle distance, the Huskers saw two men score in the 600 yards, two women score in the 1,000 meters and one women score in the 800 meters. Nick Makukutu and Adam Dailey combined to finish seventh and eighth, respectively, with times of 1:10.58 and 1:11.09 in the 600. Natalja Callahan then produced a third-place finish in the 1,000 with a personal-best time of 2:47.27, topping her previous best of 2:49.52 by over two seconds. Callahan was joined by freshman teammate Erica Hamik, who finished eighth with a time of 2:59.09. Freshman Blaire Dinsdale rounded out the pack with a fourth-place finish in the 800, running 2:10.40.

 

Overall, the Huskers ended the 2009 indoor championships with four individual champions, 41 other medalist and two meet records. The team will now get ready for last chance qualifying meets this week, looking to reach marks good enough to get them into the NCAA Indoor Championships, back at College Station in two weeks on March 13-14. The Huskers will host a last chance meet on Thursday at the Devaney Center Indoor Track, before heading to Fayetteville, Ark., Seattle, Wash., and Ames, Iowa, over the weekend. Check Huskers.com for more information.