Husker Track Team Unwraps 2004 Season at Panther Open

Lincoln -- The <?xml:namespace prefix="st1" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"?>Nebraska track and field team will get its 2004 season underway Friday and Saturday, Jan. 16-17, at the Panther Open in the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The Huskers will take on host Northern Iowa, as well as the Wisconsin men and the Northern Illinois women.<?xml:namespace prefix="o" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"?>

 

The meet begins at 3 p.m. Friday with the women’s pentathlon. The pentathlon, men’s heptathlon, both men’s and women’s weight throw and the men’s long jump will take place on Friday. The remainder of the events will be contested on Saturday beginning at 11 a.m. with the men’s high jump and concluding with the men’s 60-meter dash around 4 p.m.

 

The Huskers are coming off a banner year in which both the men’s and women’s teams took fifth place at the 2003 NCAA Outdoor Championships and combined to crown four individual national champions. During the 2003 indoor season, NU’s men finished tied for ninth and the women were 11th, while Carl Myerscough earned the only individual title at the national meet.

 

Nebraska returns all four national champions from the 2003 season, but will be without Eric Eshbach in the pole vault for the indoor season, as he only has an outdoor season of eligibility remaining. Ineta Radevica, Becky Breisch and Myerscough are available for the Huskers throughout the 2004 campaign.

 

Panther Open Meet Information

The Huskers will be represented by nearly 60 student-athletes. Around 20 newcomers will see their first action in a Nebraska uniform at the Panther Open.

 

The meet gets underway at 3 p.m. on Friday with the women’s pentathlon and will wrap up on Saturday around 4 p.m. Six Huskers, three women and three men, will compete in the multi-events on Friday and Saturday. The field events begin at 11 a.m. on Saturday and the running events get started at 11:30 a.m. The meet will not be team scored.

 

Freshman Rewrites Pole Vault Record in First Meet

Freshman Jenny Green took no time to set a new standard for the Nebraska women’s pole vaulters. The Grand Island, Neb., native cleared a height of 13-9 1/4 at the 2004 Pole Vault Summit last weekend in Reno, Nev., to become Nebraska’s first NCAA automatic qualifier.

 

The mark crushed junior Christi Lehman’s previous record by five and one half inches set at the NCAA Indoor Championships in 2003. Green won the college women’s division of the Summit competition and her mark would have finished fifth at the 2003 NCAA Indoor Championships. Three of the four athletes that set a mark better than Green’s at the national meet were seniors last year.

 

Sophomore transfer Jessi Graff took runner-up in the women’s collegiate division to Green, clearing 13-1 3/4 in her first meet as a Husker. Graff competed for Georgia Tech as a freshman, where she cleared a career-best 13-2 1/2 on March 1, 2003. Graff’s mark provisionally qualified for the NCAA Indoor meet.

 

Lehman and Alissa Koerner cleared 12-9 1/2, while Stephanie Teeple cleared 12-3 1/2.

On the men’s side, another freshman from Grand Island set the men’s standard to open the season. Gable Baldwin cleared a personal-best 16-10 3/4 to take second place in the second division of the college men’s competition.

 

Senior Brad Teeple took eighth place in the first collegiate division, clearing 16-4 3/4. Nic Petersen tied his career-best leap of 16-0 3/4.

 

Multi-Event Athletes Get First Test in Inaugural NCAA Season

The Husker multi-event athletes will have an opportunity for the first time in NCAA history to compete at the NCAA Indoor Championships in 2004. The men have competed in the decathlon since 1970 and the women have competed in the heptathlon since 1982, but neither have competed in the multi-events at the indoor championships.

 

The Husker competitors will get their first test of the season in the multi-events this weekend at the Panther Open. Sara Jane Baker, Ashley Selig and Casie Witte will compete in the pentathlon, while Jesse Colburn, Chris Richardson and Corlan Vonderschmidt will compete in the heptathlon.

 

Selig took second place in the multi-events at the indoor and outdoor Big 12 Championships as a freshman in 2003.  Baker finished sixth indoors in the pentathlon and eighth outdoors in the heptathlon. On the men’s side, Chris Richardson took fifth-place in the decathlon at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships and will try to fill the shoes of departed All-American Casey Thom.

 

NU Returns Four National Champs in 2004

Nebraska is the only Division I University that returns four 2003 NCAA individual national champions to its 2004 squad. The Huskers return Carl Myerscough (indoor and outdoor shot put), Eric Eshbach (outdoor pole vault), Ineta Radevica (outdoor triple jump) and Becky Breisch (outdoor shot put).

 

North Carolina comes the closest to Nebraska, returning three individual national champs from the 2003 season, including indoor shot put winner Laura Gerraughty.

 

The Huskers also return the services of seven All-Americans, including Kyle Odvody (high jump), Na’Tassia Vice (high jump) and Artur Wszelaki (javelin) in addition to the four national champions.

 

Huskers Ranked in Preseason Top 15

After a stellar 2003 season, the Nebraska men and women have claimed a spot among the preseason top 15 in the Trackwire rankings. The Husker women are ranked seventh along with North Carolina, while the men are tied at 14th with Indiana, Oklahoma and Wisconsin.

 

The Trackwire 25 is a power ranking which projects a hypothetical score for the NCAA meet, factoring injury reports and other variables supported by information gathered from coaches and NCAA-qualifying competitions.

 

The Louisiana State women and the Arkansas men are  the heavy favorites to repeat as national champions in 2004. Both teams return two national champions each, including one with multiple championships.

 

Seniors Will Be Missed

The Huskers will try to reload this season after losing 23 seniors from the 2003 squad. The seniors in the 2003 class were a solid group whose impact will be greatly missed.

 

Seven of those 23 seniors claimed All-America honors at one point in their career. On the women’s side, NU will miss Krisztina Kovesi, who won bronze in the triple jump at the 2003 NCAA Indoor Championships and took seventh at the outdoor national meet. Shelley-Ann Brown was also a vital member of the women’s sprint and hurdle corps.

 

On the men’s side, Shaun Kologinczak captured silver in the high jump at the 2003 NCAA Outdoor Championships to cap his collegiate career. James Bowler and David Davis Jr. also claimed All-America honors with sixth- (1,500 meters) and seventh- (110-meter hurdles) place finishes, respectively, at the outdoor national meet.