Huskers Head to Track Town USA

Meet: NCAA Outdoor Championships (meet schedule - pgs. 6-9)<?xml:namespace prefix="o" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"?>

Where: Eugene, Ore. (Hayward Field)

When: Wednesday, June 9 - Saturday, June 12

Results: www.FlashResults.com

TV: Friday - CBS College Sports: 7-9 p.m. (Central)

       Saturday - CBS: Noon-3 p.m. (Central)

 

The Nebraska track and field team will be one of the most well represented squads at the 2010 NCAA Outdoor Championships, with 22 athletes in competition at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore.

 

The Husker men are set to bring 15 qualifiers to Eugene, while the NU women will add another seven athletes that will be competing in six events.

 

The four-day meet is scheduled to start at 11 a.m. (Central) on Wednesday, June 9 and will carry through Saturday, June 12. Live television coverage will be available during the finals, with CBS College Sports providing coverage on Friday and CBS taking over on Saturday.

 

Raising the Bar

Senior Epley Bullock will enter her final collegiate meet as arguably the top female high jumper in NU history. Already a five-time All-American, Bullock will go after her sixth career honor at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.

 

A four-time All-America high jumper indoors and one-time honoree outdoors, Bullock has qualified for the NCAA Championships both indoors and outdoors in each of her four years at Nebraska under Head Coach and Jumps Coach Gary Pepin.

 

A two-time Big 12 indoor high jump champion, Bullock already has more All-America honors than any other female high jumper in school history entering the 2010 national meet. Carrie Braness is next in line with four honors.

 

After tying the NU outdoor high jump record earlier in 2010, Bullock broke Cris Hall’s 1992 record of 6-2 1/4 with a leap of 6-2 3/4 at the Nebraska/Texas Tech Dual in Lubbock, Texas.

 

Rough Road

Over the past three years, senior Lehann Fourie has hit a rough patch at the NCA Outdoor Championships. As a sophomore in 2008, Fourie qualified for the national meet, but failed to finish the preliminaries due to a hamstring injury. He then returned as one of the top 110 hurdlers in the country as a junior last season, but was disqualified at the regional meet, which made him ineligible for the NCAA Championships.

 

Now as a senior, Fourie enters the national meet with high expectations as he is the No. 2 hurdler in Division I with a time of 13.44, which he ran at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships to break the NU school record.

 

Already an All-American in the 60-meter hurdles during the 2010 indoor season, Fourie could enter an elite status among NU hurdlers if he can also earn All-America honors in the 110 hurdles. Previously, only three other male hurdlers in school history have earned All-America accolades both indoors and outdoors in the same season, including Stephen Golding (1991), Willie Hibler (1996) and Kirkland Thornton (2009).

 

Third Time’s a Charm

Two-time Big 12 pole vault champion Natalie Willer will be making her third appearance at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, where she will be in search of her first All-America honor. The school-record holder both indoors (14-3 1/4) and outdoors (14-4 1/2), Willer tied for 15th as a freshman with a leap of 13-1 1/2 and then failed to clear the opening bar last season as a sophomore.

 

Willer, who won the USA Junior Championships and Pan-Am Junior Championships last season with meet records at each, will enter the national meet tied for eighth in Division I with four other vaulters, with each posting a clearance of 14-1 1/4 in 2010.

Home-Grown Talent
Not only will the Nebraska track and field team be well represented with 22 athletes at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, but the state of Nebraska will have a strong contingent as well with eight qualifiers wearing the scarlet and cream. The Husker men will have five home-grown athletes competing, while the women’s squad will have three Nebraska natives in competition.

At the Next Level

After winning two NJCAA national titles in the javelin while at Cowley Community College, Adams Wolkins will be making his first trip to the NCAA Outdoor Championships.

 

The NU junior recently placed second at his first Big 12 Outdoor Championships with a personal-best toss of 240-6, topping his previous best of 233-9, which he set the previous week at the Nebraska Open.

 

Wolkins, who enters the meet ranked seventh in Division I, will look to become the first Husker on the men’s side to earn All-America honors in the javelin since school-record holder Artur Wszelaki finished fourth in 2002.

 

Jumps-U

Head Coach Gary Pepin will be busy in Eugene, as he personally coaches five of NU’s 22 qualifiers. Pepin will coach Nicholas Gordon (long jump), Chris Phipps (long jump) and Paul Hamilton (high jump) on the men’s side, as well as Epley Bullock (high jump) and Leandra McGruder (triple jump) on the women’s side.

 

Relays Double-Dip

The Nebraska men’s team will have a relay squad in both the 4x100 and 4x400 relays, where they will look to earn All-America relay honors outdoors for the first time since 2004.

 

The 2004 4x100-meter team of Nate Probasco, Shelldon Simpson, Dusty Stamer and Oliver Williams Jr. was the last men’s team to earn All-America status at the outdoor nation meet. In 1991, the team of Mark Jackson, Jerry Marsee, Tamas Molnar and Ken Walker was the last squad to earn All-America honors in the 4x400-meter relay, with a runner-up finish.

 

Never before in school history has the men’s team earned All-America status in both relays at the same meet. The NU women’s squad has the achieved the feat five times, including the 1983, 1984, 1991, 1992 and 1995 outdoor seasons.

 

101 and Counting

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 22 team titles during the Big 12’s 14-year history, including the program’s historic 100th conference team title in 2009 at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships, where the men’s team won in dominant fashion with four individual conference champions.

 

The Huskers followed 2009’s performance with a second straight win in 2010, as the team became the first men’s program in conference history to win back-to-back titles at the outdoor championships. NU also added to their lead in outdoor team titles, as they now have six on the men’s side. Texas is the only other men’s team to win more than one title outdoors, as the Longhorns have four.

 

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 coaching his historic 30th season at NU. The longest tenured active coach in Cornhusker athletics, Pepin  is in his 27th season as head coach of both the Husker men’s and women’s teams.

 

Last season, Pepin 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.

 

Pepin has been named Big 12 Men’s Outdoor Coach of the Year in 2009 and 2010, was named 2009 USTFCCCA Midwest Regional Men’s Outdoor Head Coach of the Year and was also named 2010 USTFCCCA Midwest Regional Women’s Indoor Head Coach of the Year.

 

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, including 115 seasons of coaching at NU alone.

 

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).