Huskers Leave Norman with Six Big 12 Titles

Norman, Okla. - The Nebraska track and field team wrapped up its final trip to the Big 12 Championships on Sunday at John Jacobs Track Complex. The Husker women entered the day with three individual titles over the meet's first two days and doubled the total with wins from Mara Griva, Ashley Miller and Natalie Willer.

The Husker women did all they could to sweep the year's team titles with 119 points, but finished second to Texas A&M (146), who won its fifth straight team title. Individually the Huskers had five athletes win six titles, the most victories the women have totaled since the meet was last in Norman in 2004 when they also won six individual crowns. The men's two-year title reign came to an end with a fourth-place finish, while Texas A&M swept the year's team titles and won its first outdoor men's title since 2001.

Nebraska will leave the Big 12 with a conference-best 23 team titles, including the women's eighth Big 12 title during the 2011 indoor season. During the Huskers' 15 years in the Big 12, Head Coach Gary Pepin's teams finished lower than third just once during the indoor season and finished outside of the top three outdoors only five times in 60 total championship appearances.

After sweeping the horizontal jump titles during the indoor season, Griva added an outdoor sweep on Sunday with a personal-best and stadium-record leap of 45-3 ¾ in the triple jump following her victory in the long jump on Saturday. Griva entered the meet ranked first in the Big 12 and carried a personal best of 43-7. A native of Ventspils, Latvia, Griva started the meet with a jump of 43-7 1/4 and then bettered the mark on her second attempt with a jump of 44-4. Griva would hold the lead until Texas' Chantel Malone cleared 44-5 ¼ on her fourth attempt, but it would be short lived as Griva bounced right back with her winning leap of 45-3 ¾. No other jumper was able to challenge the Husker freshman over the next two rounds of jumping as Malone's mark would be the next best jump in the field. With the win, Griva joins a pair of Huskers as only women's jumpers in Big 12 history to sweep the indoor and outdoor horizontal jump titles. The other NU jumpers to pull off the feat were Dalhia Ingram in 2000 and Ineta Radevica in 2004. Griva also moved to the No. 2 spot on NU's all-time performance list behind Radevica's school-record jump of 46-4 from 2004.

"If someone had said I would jump this far this morning, I wouldn't have believed them," Griva said. "I was just trying to do what I could do today."

Ashley Miller then captured the Huskers fifth individual title of the meet with a personal-best time of 4:18.70 in the 1,500 meters. A fifth-place finisher in 2009 and a fourth-place finisher in 2010, Miller sat fourth with roughly 600 meters left in the race. The Husker junior found another gear and started moving up through the field before sprinting to victory over Iowa State's Lucy Kennedy (4:20.98). Miller is the second Husker to win the event in the Big 12 era, joining 2005 Big 12 and national champion Anne Shadle.

"I've been here for three years and it feels good to win a title at our final Big 12 meet," Miller said. "I knew from my workouts that I could finish strong today."

Senior Natalie Willer was the final Husker to win an individual title and set conference history along the way in the pole vault. After sweeping the event in 2009 and then capturing gold at the indoor championships earlier this year with a school- and meet-record vault of 14-4, Willer became the first women's vaulter in Big 12 history to sweep the vault twice with her win on Sunday. The Elkhorn, Neb., native passed at the first three heights before entering with back-to-back first-attempt makes at 13-0 ¾ and 13-6 ½. She then struggled at 13-10 ½, but cleared on her third attempt, leaving her in third place entering the 14-2 ½ bar. Willer once again took three tries to clear the bar, but it was enough for the win as neither Texas A&M's Laura Asimakis or Oklahoma's Alexandra Acker were able to clear.

"My goal every year is to win at the Big 12 meet," Willer said. "As always it feels great to win."

Willer was joined on the award stand by Cami Jiskra and Breanna Bussel, who each cleared 13-0 ¾, with Jiskra placing sixth and Bussel tying for eight on misses.

Along with Miller's win, the NU distance squad earned four other All-Big 12 honors. Martina Barinova and Jessica Furlan combined to score eight points in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with Barinova's fourth-place time of 10:27.48 and Furlan's sixth-place time of 10:44.45. David Adams then improved on his third-place finish from a year ago in the men's steeplechase with a runner-up time of 8:54.49 to score eight points. Sophomore Tommy Brinn then broke 1:49.00 in the 800 meters for the first time in his career with a time of 1:48.87 and earned himself a fifth-place finish. Brinn has earned All-Big 12 honors in the 800 both indoors and outdoors in his first two season at Nebraska.

Following a combined 12-point performance in the shot put on Saturday, the trio of Luke Pinkelman, Tyler Hitchler and Chad Wright added another 10 points in the discus on Sunday. Hitchler led the way with a toss of 191-3, while Wright was sixth at 185-9 and Pinkelman came in eighth with a throw of 177-2. Julian Wruck of Texas Tech won the event with a meet-record throw of 208-1, which topped the previous record of 206-10 set by Nebraska's own Carl Myerscough in 2004. In the women's discus, Morgan Wilken placed sixth with a throw of 171-11 and Samantha Musil was seventh with a toss of 168-2.

In the 400 hurdles, the men and women combined for four top-eight finishes. Senior Adam Dailey improved his 2008 time of 50.33 with a time of 50.11 to take fourth, while fellow senior Eric Lund finished seventh in 51.36 and freshman Miles Ukaoma was eighth in 51.45. On the women's side, freshman Ellie Grooters broke her previous best of 59.82 with an eight-place time of 59.48.

Audrey Svane opened the scoring on Sunday for the Huskers by tying for sixth in the women's high jump. Now a four-time All-Big 12 performer outdoors, Svane started with a first attempt make at 5-5 ¼, then passed at 5-6 1/2 and followed with a make at 5-7 ¼ on her first try. The bar then moved to 5-9 ¼ and she was unable to clear. Also in the jumps, Chris Phipps matched his fifth-place finish in the long jump from Saturday with a fifth-place showing in the triple jump on Sunday. Phipps was one of six jumpers in the field to clear 51 feet with a leap of 51-2 ¾.

Freshman Mara Weekes earned three All-Big 12 honors on Sunday with a seventh-place finish in the 400 meters and two relay honors. Weekes first teamed with Karyn LaCour, Alyssa Vierregger and Rachel Butler to finish eighth in the 4x100 meters (47.72), then she bettered her previous best of 54.49 in the 400 meters with a time of 53.49 before finishing the night as the second leg of the Huskers' sixth-place 4x400-meter relay that ran a season best of 3:37.73. Weekes was joined on the 4x400 team by Vierregger, Grooters and Rachel Butler.

The men's 4x400-meter relay of Dailey, Ukaoma, Kurt Pauly and Jodi-Rae Blackwood ended the meet for Nebraska with a sixth-place time of 3:09.92.

The Huskers now turn their attention to qualifying for the NCAA Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, on June 8-11. NU will travel to Eugene, Ore., on Thursday, May 26 for the three-day NCAA West Region Preliminary Round. The top-48 athletes in each event in the region will compete for a top-12 finish, which will earn them an automatic bid to the national meet.