Huskers Prepare for Dual with Red Raiders

Huskers Host Red Raiders for Dual

This weekend at the Devaney Center Indoor Track, the Huskers are set to host the Texas Tech Raiders for a dual, staring at 2:30 p.m. The meet should be full of talent, as both Husker squads are ranked in the latest USTFCCCA rankings, with the men ranked No. 5 and women No. 12. For the Red Raiders, the men’s squad is just outside the top 10 at No. 11 and the women will enter the meet unranked in the top 25.

 

The meet will use dual meet scoring, with each team able to enter as many athletes as they want in each event, but only the top two finishers on each squad will have their score count.

 

Prior to the dual with Texas Tech, the Huskers will also host the Husker Multi Challenge on Friday and Saturday. The event will begin on Friday night at 5 p.m. with the men’s heptathlon, before starting again on Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m. with the women’s pentathlon and the conclusion of the men’s heptathlon at 10 a.m.

 

Fans can purchase tickets on Huskers.com, by calling 1-800-8BIGRED or by stopping by the Nebraska Athletic Ticket Office, located directly west of Memorial Stadium. For more information and a complete meet schedule, as well as information about the rest of the 2010 season, log on to Huskers.com.

 

Head to Track after Basketball for Free

Nebraska fans will be able to watch two events for the price one of this weekend. Fans that have purchased a ticket to the Nebraska men’s basketball game against Oklahoma on Saturday at 12:30 p.m., will then be able to get into the track meet at 2:30 p.m. for free with their basketball ticket stub.

 

Bullock Soars to New Heights

Senior Epley Bullock locked up her spot at the 2010 NCAA Championships on Saturday, Jan. 23, at the adidas Classic with a personal-best jump of 6-1 1/2. The jump broke Bullock’s previous best by one-quarter of an inch and gave her sole possession of the No. 3 performance in Husker indoor history, after previous sharing the spot with Tammy Thurman (1988) and Kerry Doetker (1997). The mark is tops in the Big 12 Conference this season and ties Bullock with Hawaii’s Amber Kaufman for the No. 2 spot on the 2010 NCAA list.

 

Home for Hurdlers

Through just two weekends, the Nebraska track and field team has four hurdlers provisionally qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships, with two each on the men’s and women’s sides. Lehann Fourie leads the way for the men, as he holds the No. 3 time in the NCAA this season at 7.77 and is joined by teammate Tyrell Ross, who is tied for the No. 17 spot at 7.91. For the women, Arna Erega and Karyn LaCour sit side-by-side on the list with Erega one spot higher at 13th, with a time of 8.37, and LaCour next in line at 8.38.

 

Fourie Fires Out

Lehann Fourie has started his junior season on the right foot, as the junior holds the third best 60-meter hurdle time in the nation after running a time of 7.77 on Saturday, Jan. 16 at the Holiday Inn Invitational. The time was just two-hundredths of a second shy of his personal best of 7.75.

 

Suckstorf Strong in Debut

After transferring to Nebraska last season from Wayne State College with one year of indoor eligibility and two years of outdoor eligibility, Brett Suckstorf redshirted the 2009 indoor season so that he could compete both indoors and outdoors for the Huskers in 2010. Suckstorf made the most of his first indoor meet as a Husker, as the senior posted the sixth best weight throw mark in the country at 66-6 1/2. Not only did the toss break his previous best of 64-9 3/4, but it was also the third-best performance in NU history.

 

Pepin back for 30th Season

The all-time winningest track and field coach in the history of the Big 12 and the former Big Eight Conference, Nebraska Head Coach Gary Pepin is entering his historic 30th season at NU. The longest tenured active coach in Cornhusker athletics, Pepin enters his 27th season as head coach of both the Husker men’s and women’s track teams.

 

For Pepin, last season he also passed 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. He was named 2009 Big 12 Men’s Outdoor Coach of the Year and the 2009 USTFCCCA Midwest Regional Men’s Outdoor Coach of the Year.

 

Atop the Conference

After winning 51 Big Eight titles during the conference’s history from 1974-1996, the Huskers have continued to dominate since moving to the Big 12 Conference for the 1997 season. NU has won a league-high 21 team titles over the Big 12’s first 13 years, including the program’s historic 100th conference team title last season at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships, where the men’s team won in dominant fashion with four individual conference champions.

 

Bullock Back for No. 4

Senior Epley Bullock will look to make history in 2010, as the Allen, Texas, native will have a chance to become the first Husker on the women’s side in school history to earn four All-America honors in the indoor high jump.

 

Last season, Bullock joined Chris Hall (1991-93) as the only Huskers to achieve the feat three times.

 

Gordon Goes for Two

After winning just the second indoor long jump national title in school history on the men’s side in 2009, Nicholas Gordon will look to become the first Husker ever to win back-to-back titles in the event.

 

Carl Myerscough and Ineta Radevica were the last Huskers to win back-to-back NCAA titles, as Radevica took the outdoor triple jump and Myerscough the outdoor shot put, both in 2003 and 2004.

 

Gordon is also the returning Big 12 indoor and outdoor long jump champion. Chris Wright (1997-98) was the last Husker on the men’s side to win back-to-back titles in the indoor long jump. Gordon topped Wright’s meet record of 26-0 last season with his winning jump of 26-1 1/2.

 

17 Decades and Counting

The wealth of coaching knowledge at Nebraska is nearly unmatched as the Husker coaching staff holds a combined 170 years of coaching experience.

Stability has been key to the success of the track team as four of Head Coach Gary Pepin’s assistants have been with the program for 10 or more years and two for 20 years or longer, including Jay Dirksen (27th season), Mark Colligan (24th season), Billy Maxwell (15th season) and Matt Martin (14th season).