NU Hits High Gear with Four Out-of-State Meets

The Nebraska track and field teams hit the road for the second consecutive week when they send athletes to several venues April 14-16. A small squad of four Husker distance runners will head to Walnut, Calif., for Friday’s Mt. SAC Relays, before participating in the Long Beach Invitational Saturday in Long Beach, Calif. Meanwhile, 53 NU athletes will compete in the University of Oklahoma’s John Jacobs Invitational Saturday in Norman, Okla. Husker multi-event athletes will also be in action at the Audrey Walton Combined Events Carnival, held Thursday and Friday in Columbia, Mo. For a complete event schedule for the Mt. SAC Relays, Long Beach Invite and John Jacobs Invite, please refer to page 2 of this week’s track and field notes.

Mt. SAC Relays & Long Beach Invite
(Friday, April 15 & Saturday, April 16)
Husker distance runners Kim Pancoast, Eric Rasmussen, Anne Shadle and Peter van der Westhuizen will face one of this year’s strongest national fields Friday at the Mt. SAC Relays. The annual meet is recognized as one of the top outdoor competitions in the country. Pancoast and van der Westhuizen will compete in the women’s and men’s 1,500-meter run events, respectively, while Shadle will run the women’s 800. Rasmussen will be the Huskers’ final competitor in the men’s 10,000.

The following day, three of the four athletes will participate in the men’s and women’s 800 meters at the Long Beach Invitational. Rasmussen will be the lone Husker to sit out, as Pancoast, Shadle and van der Westhuizen each will compete.

For live updated results from the Mt. SAC Relays via the internet, visit http://vm.mtsac.edu/relays. Results from Long Beach can be found at http://ezmeets.com/.

John Jacobs Invitational
(Saturday, April 16)
The largest group of Huskers to suit up for an outdoor meet so far this season will travel to Oklahoma for Saturday’s John Jacobs Invitational. Fifty-three athletes, 31 men and 22 women, plan to compete against a field that includes squads from Baylor, Oklahoma, Texas Christian and Tulsa.

The NU women will feature several of their top athletes, including Priscilla Lopes in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, Dace Ruskule, who ranks fifth in the NCAA in the discus, Kayla Wilkinson, also fifth in the nation in the javelin, and Kwonya Ferguson, the Huskers’ top long and triple jumper who has been held out of action for more than two months while recovering from an injury. In all, 10 of Nebraska’s 15 female NCAA regional qualifiers will compete in Norman.

On the men’s side, 13 of NU’s 14 regional qualifiers are slated to participate, with several others having their sights set on their first qualifying standards. Each of the top three 110-meter hurdlers (Richard Davidson Jr., Courtney Jones and Nenad Loncar) will attend, as will the top two 400-meter hurdlers (Andy Nelson and Mark Harrison) and pole vaulters (Ray Scotten and Gable Baldwin). Huskers attempting to earn their first regional qualification include Aaron Nasers (800 meters) and Aaron Plas (high jump), among others.

For results via the internet, please visit www.soonersports.com.

Audrey Walton Combined Event Carnival
(Thursday, April 14 & Friday, April 15)
Six Huskers, four women and two men, will travel to Columbia, Mo., for the Audrey Walton Combined Event Carnival, held Thursday and Friday on the University of Missouri campus. Multi-event athletes from Arkansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Missouri and Southwest Missouri State, as well as several professionals, will make up the field of competitors.

Sara Jane Baker, Ashley Selig, Kim Shubert and Casie Witte will each compete in the women’s heptathlon, while Kyle Goerl and Lee Martin will participate in their first men’s decathlon of the 2005 outdoor season. NU freshmen Nathan Kumm and Skyler Reising are also entered in the decathlon, but they will compete unattached.

Both Thursday’s and Friday’s events are scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. For live updated results from Missouri via the internet, visit: http://mutigers.collegesports.com/livestats/c-track/tf/2005/waltonce/.

Next Up: Kansas Relays
(April 21 - 23)
Nebraska will feature some of its elite athletes at next week’s Kansas Relays. With the number of entries limited, the size of the squad is still unknown. The three-day meet, held Thursday through Saturday, will begin at respective times of 11, 10 and 9:15 a.m.

Scotten Wins Texas Relays Pole Vault Title
Ray Scotten claimed the men’s pole vault title on the final day of action at last weekend’s Texas Relays. Scotten improved his personal best in the pole vault to 18-0 1/2 while winning his first Texas Relays title. He had recorded a best of 17-11 while competing last year for Southern Illinois. His previous season-best height of 17-10 ? was No. 2 on NU’s all-time outdoor performance charts, trailing only former Husker Eric Eshbach’s 2004 record vault of 18-8 1/4.

On the women’s side, Priscilla Lopes earned a runner-up finish in the women’s 100-meter hurdles with a time of 12.89, which surpassed the meet record. Texas’ Ashlee Williams, who recorded a winning time of 12.83, set the new meet standard. Dace Ruskule claimed third place in the women’s discus with a throw of 172-7, which was five feet shy of Ronda Gullatte’s (Auburn) winning toss of 177-7.

Other Huskers in action included Dusty Jonas (7-0 ?), who earned fifth place in the men’s high jump, and Nenad Loncar (13.91), who also claimed a fifth-place finish in the men’s 110-meter hurdles. Dusty Stamer (10.38) and Frances Keating (59.38) placed seventh in the men’s 100-meter dash and 400-meter hurdles, respectively.

Huskers Notch Six Winners at Emporia State Relays
While some Huskers were leaving their imprint on the Texas Relays, a large group of about 50 Nebraska tracksters were dominating the Emporia State Relays in Emporia, Kan. NU athletes won six events and claimed a total of 26 top-five finishes against a field of competitors from Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Wichita State, among others.

Notable performers included Kayla Wilkinson, who set a personal-best heave in the women’s javelin with a winning throw of 174-3. Wilkinson smashed her previous best by more than 17 feet, while the performance also came within seven feet of the NU record of 181-0 (Cassi Morelock, 2000). Casie Witte also broke a personal-best mark to win the women’s high jump with a height of 5-9 ?. Witte’s previous best was 5-8 ?, which she recorded at the Stanford Invitational. Arturs Abolins staked claim to the men’s long jump title with a leap of 24-11, while he also finished third in the men’s 100-meter dash in 10.90.

Other Husker winners at Emporia State included Egle Uljas (2:12.51) in the women’s 800-meter run and Peter van der Westhuizen (1:53.36) in the men’s 800 meters, as well as the NU men’s 800-meter relay team, which recorded a time of 7:55.31.

Wilkinson Pushing Toward School Record
Kayla Wilkinson has experienced a tremendous start to her 2005 season with two exceptional performances in the women’s javelin. Entering this season as the fourth-best javelin performer in Nebraska history, she has climbed to No. 2, within only a few feet of the top overall spot.

Three weeks ago at the Stanford Invitational, Wilkinson claimed the No. 2 spot with a heave of 157-10 to win the event title. The mark broke her pervious best by seven feet, but she had not reached her best performance. She eclipsed that mark by more than 16 feet last weekend at the Emporia State Relays with her winning launch of 174-3. The throw currently ranks fifth among all NCAA performers, while she leads the Big 12 Conference by nearly 15 feet.

In the NU record book, Wilkinson trails only Cassi Morelock’s 2000 record of 181-0, a margin of less than seven feet. Look for the record to possibly fall this season, and if it does not, the sophomore still has two more seasons remaining to surpass it.

Fabulous Freshmen Make Their Marks
A common theme during the young outdoor season has been even younger Huskers recording big performances. So far, five NU freshmen have already notched regional-qualifying marks with only two weekends of competition under their belts.

Nebraska’s youthful group of throwers leads the way with three regional qualifiers. Bubba Kramer was able to record his first qualifying performance in his first outdoor meet--the Stanford Invitational. Kramer’s best throw of 56-10 1/4 in the men’s shot put currently ranks sixth in the Big 12. A pair of freshmen Husker women’s discus throwers, Amber Curtis and Laura Wortmann, also joined NU’s Midwest Regional list last weekend at Emporia State. Curtis and Wortmann garnered respective conference rankings of fourth and seventh with last Saturday’s performances.

Dusty Jonas became the first member of the NU vertical jumps crew to qualify for regionals when he finished fifth in the long jump at the Texas Relays. Jonas is no stranger to early-career success, as he finished as runner-up in the high jump at last month’s NCAA Indoor Championships. Meanwhile, Frances Keating joined fellow freshman women’s qualifiers Curtis and Wortmann by finishing seventh in the 400-meter hurdles at Texas.

This weekend could be another big weekend for Nebraska’s newbies, as 16 more Husker freshman will attempt to earn qualifying marks.

NU Athletes Rank Among Nation’s Best
The second set of Trackwire Top 25 rankings for the 2005 outdoor season were released on Tuesday with both Nebraska squads earning top-20 recognition. The women’s team dropped from fifth to eighth this week, while the men’s team fell from No. 9 to No. 16.

The Trackwire Top 25, a set of rankings used to predict the outcome of this year’s NCAA Championships, are calculated by track and field statistician Gary Verigin, who uses his "Dandy Dozen" power rankings of the top 12 athletes in each NCAA event. Eleven Huskers appear in this week’s edition of the "Dandy Dozen," down from last week’s season-high total of 14. For a complete list of NU athletes ranked, please see page 4 of this week’s track and field notes.

While the outdoor season is still relatively young, several Huskers own lofty event rankings on the NCAA’s latest performance list.

Nebraska women who have earned high rankings include Anne Shadle, the top-ranked athlete for the1,500-meter run, Priscilla Lopes and Ashley Selig, who have earned respective No. 2 spots in the 100-meter hurdles and heptathlon, and Dace Ruskule and Kayla Wilkinson, both of whom are ranked fifth in the discus and javelin, respectively. Sara Jane Baker also owns a top-10 spot with her seventh-place ranking in the heptathlon.

NU’s hurdlers lead the men’s team in the NCAA rankings with five athletes among the nation’s top-ranked performers. Three Huskers, Richard Davidson Jr. (No. 7), Nenad Loncar (No. 10) and Courtney Jones (No. 19), rank among the top 20 in the 110-meter hurdles, while Andy Nelson (14th) and Mark Harrison (29th) both represent NU in the 400-meter hurdle ratings. Nebraska’s pole vault crew is also well-represented with top-ranked Ray Scotten and Gable Baldwin (12th). Peter van der Westhuizen (seventh) and Dusty Jonas (eighth) have each earned top-10 rankings in the 1,500 meters and high jump, respectively.

How Nebraska Stacks Up Against the Big 12
With this year’s Big 12 Outdoor Championships still a month away, NU athletes have already begun to make their presence felt on the conference scene. Those Huskers who have opened their outdoor seasons appear in the top eight (scoring places) on this week’s Big 12 performance list 41 times (21 women, 20 men), despite having only competed during two weekends so far.

Nebraska men sitting on top of their respective events include Richard Davidson Jr. (110-meter hurdles) and Ray Scotten (pole vault), while Anne Shadle (1,500 meters), Dace Ruskule (discus), Kayla Wilkinson (javelin) and Ashley Selig (heptathlon) each have earned No. 1 rankings for the NU women.

With four full weekends of competition still remaining until the beginning of the 2005 outdoor postseason, look for Nebraska to continue its strong push toward the Big 12 Championships, to be held May 13-15 in Manhattan, Kan.

Shadle, Selig Claim First NCAA Championships
Two Huskers went a long way toward pushing the Nebraska women’s squad to its fourth-place team finish at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Ark. Ashley Selig and Anne Shadle each broke NU records to earn their first national title with the Huskers.

Selig overcame a strong performance by BYU’s Amy Menlove to claim the women’s pentathlon championship with a school-record 4,327 points. The three-time NCAA All-American set personal bests in the high jump (5-9 1/4) and long jump (20-2 1/2) to break her own Husker women’s record of 4,269 points. Selig’s win came as no surprise; she entered the competition with the nation’s No. 1 ranking for the event.

Anne Shadle provided what outsiders may have described as a mild upset in the women’s mile. Shadle entered the weekend with the nation’s No. 4 time in the event, but gave the best performance of her life during Saturday’s final to finish in an NU-record 4:38.22. The mark bumped former Husker great Fran ten Bensel’s 1992 record of 4:38.33 from the top of the Nebraska women’s charts.

While Selig and Shadle were the lone Huskers to win NCAA titles, several other athletes also had fantastic finishes. Including the two champions, Nebraska took home 12 All-America honors. Priscilla Lopes earned two awards for finishing second in the women’s 60-meter hurdles and eighth in the dash. Three NU men finished runner-up, including Dusty Jonas (high jump), Ray Scotten (pole vault) and Dusty Stamer (60 meters). Other All-Americans included Gable Baldwin (men’s pole vault), Richard Davidson Jr. (men’s 60-meter hurdles), Aaron Plas (men’s high jump), Nate Probasco (men’s 200 meters) and Daniel Roper (men’s triple jump).