NU to Open 2005 Season at Home

The Husker men’s and women’s track and field teams will begin their 2005 indoor seasons by hosting the Holiday Inn Invitational this Friday and Saturday, Jan. 14-15, at the Bob Devaney Sports Center Indoor Track. The invitational will be the first of four home meets NU will hold on its home track during the indoor season.

Nebraska will try to regroup after one of its finest seasons in which both teams claimed top-25 finishes at the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships while earning five individual NCAA championships. The NU women earned third place at both national meets and had three athletes win national titles, while the men tied for 19th (indoors) and 13th (outdoors) with one individual NCAA title.

Holiday Inn Meet Information
Nearly 30 schools will be featured at this weekend’s Holiday Inn Invitational, including in-state squads from Chadron State, Concordia, Dana, Doane, Hastings, Midland Lutheran, Nebraska-Kearney, Nebraska-Omaha, Nebraska Wesleyan, St. Mary’s, Wayne State and York College.

Competition begins on Friday at 3 p.m. with field events including the men’s and women’s weight throw, high jump, long jump and women’s pole vault. All field events will feature seeded athletes, with the exception of the men’s and women’s high jump. Running events will begin at 4 p.m. and will include the 60-meter hurdle prelims, 60-meter dash, 800-meter run, 1,000, mile, 3,000 and 5,000. Admission options for fans include reserved seats ($6) and general admission ($4 for adults, $2 for kids 6 years and older). UNL students and kids under six will be admitted for free.

Saturday’s action begins at noon with field events including the men’s pole vault, men’s and women’s shot put, triple jump and the seeded men’s and women’s high jump. Select running events will also begin at noon with the 60-meter hurdles semifinals.

Meet recaps and results can be found at Huskers.com on Friday and Saturday following the conclusion of competition, while a complete event-by-event schedule will be available Wednesday.

Last Year’s Holiday Inn Invitational
The Huskers kicked off their 2004 home schedule with a bang at last year’s Holiday Inn Invitational. Overall, NU won 18 events on the way to setting 43 personal-best marks. Included in the individual event titles were wins by both the men and women in the mile, 800-meter run, distance medley relay, 600-yard run and the triple jump.

Becky Breisch improved her NCAA automatic qualifying mark in the shot put to 54-8, while Dusty Stamer (6.67 in the 60-meter dash) and Christi Lehman (13-0 1/4 in the pole vault) earned their first provisional marks of the season. Priscilla Lopes improved her provisional mark in the 60-meter hurdles to 8.21, while Ineta Radevica leaped a season-best 43-7 in the triple jump.

Selig, Baker Record Provisional Qualifying Marks
Eight Husker multi-event athletes concluded their fall training season by participating in the Carol Robinson Pentathlon in Manhattan, Kan., on December 10. NU competed against athletes from Emporia State, Kansas State, Nebraska-Omaha, Missouri-Kansas City, North Texas and Portland State.

Junior Ashley Selig, an All-American in the 2004, finished second to Nebraska-Omaha’s Anastasia Kyvelidou in the women’s pentathlon with a score of 3,770, while junior Sara Jane Baker earned third place after collecting 3,707 points. Both Selig and Baker reached the NCAA provisional-qualifying mark of 3,700 points. Junior Casie Witte completed the NU women’s contingent in fifth place with 3,506 points.

Sophomore Lee Martin led the Husker men by finishing third with a score of 3,654. Martin set personal-best marks of 22-0 3/4 in the long jump and 6-6 1/4 in the high jump. Senior Jesse Colburn came in fourth after posting 3,522 points, while sophomore Corlan Vonderschmidt finished 12th (2,930).

NU men competing unattached included freshmen Skyler Reising (3,139; seventh) and Nathan Kumm (2,927; 13th). Former Husker Chris Richardson finished second with 3,744 points. Kansas State’s Darius Draudvila won the competition after posting a score of 4,116.

Huskers Name 2005 Captains
The NU track and field team elected eight athletes to serve as captains during the 2005 season. The group of four men and four women have accounted for a total of seven All-America honors and three individual Big 12 championships through their careers.

Husker women appointed captains included two seniors, Christi Lehman (Newton, Kan.) and Anne Shadle (South Sioux City, Neb.), one junior, Ashley Selig (Lincoln, Neb.), and one sophomore, Priscilla Lopes (Whitby, Ontario). Lehman (2003 indoor pole vault) and Shadle (2004 indoor 1,000 meters) are both former Big 12 champions, while Lopes (sprints/hurdles), Selig (pentathlon/heptathlon) and Lehman have each earned All-America honors over the course of their careers. Lopes won the 2004 indoor national title in the 60-meter hurdles.

Senior Dusty Stamer (Grand Island, Neb.) leads the men’s quartet of captains after earning 2004 outdoor All-America recognition as a member of Nebraska’s school-record-setting 4x100-meter relay. Seniors Richard Davidson (Lewisville, Tex.), who claimed third place in the 110-meter hurdles at last year’s Big 12 Outdoor Championships, and Kyle Goerl (Hutchinson, Kan), who placed eighth in the decathlon at the same meet, were also elected. The lone non-senior to be named a men’s captain, junior Nic Petersen (Omaha, Neb.), earned eighth place in the pole vault at last year’s Big 12 Indoor Championships.

"We have a good mix of captains that have a lot of character, are good students and have competed on the conference level, and some on the national level," Head Coach Gary Pepin said. "It’s a good group of young student-athletes that should represent both the team and University of Nebraska very well."

Ten Returning All-Americans to be Featured in 2005
An amazing 10 NCAA All-Americans return for the Huskers this season, five each for the men’s and women’s squads. Headlining the group will be sophomore sprinter/hurdler Priscilla Lopes, who won accolades in the 60-meter dash and 60-meter hurdles indoors, as well as the 100-meter hurdles outdoors. Other women to return after reaching All-America status include junior Ashley Selig, who finished seventh indoors in the pentathlon and third outdoors in the heptathlon, and senior Christi Lehman, who finished ninth (eighth American) in the indoor pole vault. Senior thrower Becky Breisch, the 2004 NCAA discus champion, and sophomore Jenny Green, an All-American in both the indoor (third) and outdoor (third) pole vault, also return for NU, but both are likely to redshirt in 2005 becuase of injury.

Sophomore Dmitrijs Milkevics will aim for NCAA titles in the 800-meter run following an outstanding freshman campaign that saw him earn All-America honors by finishing sixth at both the the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships. Junior Aaron Nasers, who finished ninth (fifth American) indoors in the 800, adds even more firepower to Nebraska’s middle distance crew. Finally, three members of NU’s eighth-place outdoor 4x100-meter relay quartet return in senior Dusty Stamer, junior Oliver Williams Jr. and sophomore Nate Probasco.

Nebraska: Home to the World-Class Athlete
NU was represented well by both current and former track and field athletes at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, at the end of August. In all, four current and two former Huskers vied for Olympic honors, the 13th straight Games that NU has been represented.

Once again, former Husker Merelene Ottey claimed the highest placing of any NU athlete by finishing 10th in women’s 100-meter dash competition while representing Slovenia. Ottey’s appearance was her seventh straight Olympics, over which time she has earned three silver and five bronze medals. She also competed in the 200-meter dash, but did not qualify for the finals.

Another former NU athlete, Ineta Radevica, made her first appearance in an Olympics by representing Latvia in both the long jump and triple jump events. Radevica, who concluded her Husker career last spring with an NCAA title in the triple jump, claimed three national titles in the event during her three years at Nebraska. She was unable to reach the finals in either the long jump or triple jump in Athens.

Dmitrijs Milkevics became the first-ever Husker to reach the semifinals of the men’s 800-meter run while also representing Latvia. Milkevics, who earned two All-America honors in 2004 in the 800, won his quarterfinal heat in a time of 1:46.66 before bowing out in the semifinals.

Last year’s women’s NCAA 60-meter hurdle champion, Priscilla Lopes, competed in the 100-meter hurdles for Canada. She finished fifth in heat four of the five-heat first round, 20th overall. Another Husker hurdler, Nenad Loncar, represented Serbia and Montenegro in the men’s 110-meter hurdles, finishing 46th overall in first round competition with a time of 14.02.

One newcomer to the Nebraska track and field ranks also competed in the Games for Latvia. Dace Ruskule, a sophomore thrower in 2005 for NU, earned 14th place in the women’s discus qualifying round after unleashing a throw of 188-5. The mark would have won last year’s Big 12 Championships by more than 18, while earning fourth place at the 2004 NCAA Championships.