Huskers Hit the Road for Three Meets

Lincoln - The No. 6 men’s and No. 15 women’s Nebraska track and field teams will be in action at three different meets across the country this weekend.

The majority of the Husker throwers, sprinters and distance runners will head to the ISU Classic in Ames, Iowa, while the pole vaulters and jumpers will travel south to Fayetteville, Ark., for the Tyson Invitational and distance runner David Adams will trek west to the Husky Classic in Seattle, Wash.

For more information on each meet, log on to Huskers.com.

Tops in the Region
For the second straight week the Nebraska track and field team holds the top spot on both the men’s and women’s Midwest Regional rankings, released by the USTFCCCA on Tuesday, Feb. 9. Nationally, the NU men are ranked in the top 10 for the fourth straight week at No. 6, while the Husker women stayed in the top 15 at No. 15.

Regionally, the Husker men are ranked No. 1 with 443.38 points, which is 110.2 points ahead of No. 2 Oklahoma (333.18). The 110.2-point difference is the highest separation between the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in any of the nine USTFCCCA regions on the men’s side.

For the NU women, the Huskers hold a 331.21-294.20 advantage over Minnesota, which slid up two spots from last week’s rankings.

The Big ?O’
At both the ISU Classic and Husky Classic this weekend, the Nebraska track and field team will have the advantage of running on a 300-meter oversized track. While most indoor tracks are 200 meters, a 300-meter oval provides for faster times, given the longer straight-aways. The times are eligible for NCAA qualifying; however, records are kept separate for 200- and 300-meter ovals.

Jumps-U
The Nebraska track and field team has always been a premier program for jumpers to develop under Head Coach and Jumps Coach Gary Pepin, and this year is no different. Eight of Pepin’s jumpers have already provisionally or automatically qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships, including women’s high jumper Epley Bullock. Bullock topped the auto mark with a personal best leap of 6-1 1/2, good enough for third in the NCAA this season. On the men’s sides, Nicholas Gordon has qualified in the long and triple jumps. All of Pepin’s jumper rank in the top 30 nationally in their respective event, with five of those jumpers ranked in the top 15.

Two Decades Later
Junior Ashley Miller started day two of the Frank Sevigne Husker Invitational on a high note for the Huskers, as she took down a 20-year old meet record in the 1,000 meters. Miller, who led from the gun to the finish, clocked a time of 2:49.56 to break the previous record of 2:50.39, set by Missouri’s Val Sauer in 1990. The time topped Miller’s previous best of 2:51.93.

Lucky 13
The Huskers had a successful 2010 Frank Sevigne Husker Invitational, as the team produced 13 NCAA provisional-qualifying marks. Of the 13, five of the marks were the athletes’ first qualifying-performance of the season.

Fourie Fights for First
One week after taking back the No. 1 spot on the NCAA list in the 60-meter hurdles, Husker hurdler Lehann Fourie slid to No. 3 behind Jarret Eaton (Syracuse) and Justin Chiaravelle (Manhattan), who each ran 7.68 over the weekend. After starting the year with a time of 7.77 on Saturday, Jan. 16, Fourie regained the top spot with a school-record tying time of 7.70 on Saturday, Jan. 30. The Pretoria, South Africa, native also became the first hurdler in the Division I to automatically qualify for the 2010 NCAA Indoor Championships. This weekend Fourie will compete at the Tyson Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark., which is home to the 2010 NCAA Indoor Championships.

Willer Hits Auto Mark
In just her second meet of the season, Natalie Willer added her name to the list of automatic qualifiers in the women’s pole vault on Saturday, Jan. 30 at the Bill Bergan Invitational with a leap of 13-11 1/4. The indoor and outdoor school record holder is tied for ninth in the NCAA this season.

Home for Hurdlers
The Nebraska track and field team has one hurdler automatically qualified and three 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 7.70 and is joined by teammate Tyrell Ross, who is tied for the No. 22 spot at 7.91. For the women, Arna Erega is tied for 23rd at 8.36 and Karyn LaCour is tied for 25th at 8.38.

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 ranks her No. 3 on the NCAA list behind Hawaii’s Amber Kaufman and Arizona’s Elizabeth Patterson, who have each jumped 6-3 1/4.

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.