NU Splits Squads Between Kansas & Doane

Nearly half of the members of the Nebraska men’s and women’s track and field teams will be in action this weekend at either the Kansas Relays in Lawrence, Kan., or the Doane Relays in Crete, Neb. A collection of some of NU’s top athletes from every event group will compete in Kansas, except for the Husker throwers, who will all travel to Doane.

Kansas Relays (Friday, April 22 & Saturday, April 23)
Forty Huskers (23 men and 17 women) will make the trip south for the Kansas Relays this weekend. The meet features some of the nation’s top talent on an annual basis.

While most of NU’s athletes are entered in the college section of their respective events, seven members of the Husker men’s team have been invited to face the nation’s top talent, both collegiate and professional, in the Invitational sections. Several former Olympians and NCAA All-Americans are scheduled to participate in nearly each of the Invitational competitions, which will all be held on Saturday afternoon.

Dusty Stamer and Nate Probasco will participate in the Invitational sections of the men’s 100- and 200-meter dash events, respectively, while Nenad Loncar will race in the 110-meter hurdles. Two Nebraska athletes are entered in Invitational field events, as Ray Scotten will compete in the pole vault and Dusty Jonas in the high jump. Stamer and Probasco, along with Arturs Abolins and Oliver Williams Jr., will also team together in the 4x100-meter relay.

Other NU men scheduled to compete in the college sections of the Kansas Relays include regional qualifiers Gable Baldwin, Richard Davidson Jr., Mark Harrison, Courtney Jones, Aaron Nasers and Andy Nelson. Two-time All-American Dmitrijs Milkevics will be making his 2005 outdoor debut in the men’s 800 meters, as well.

Members of the women’s team scheduled to compete who have already met NCAA regional-qualifying standards include Kwonya Ferguson, Jessie Graff, Frances Keating, Christi Lehman, Priscilla Lopes, Sheryl Morgan, Egle Uljas and Casie Witte.

Nebraska’s competition on Friday begins at 10:30 a.m., while Saturday’s action starts at 9 a.m. For a complete schedule of the weekend’s events, as well as NU’s participants, see page 2 of this week’s track and field notes. For live results via the internet, visit www.kuathletics.com.

Doane Relays (Friday, April 22 & Saturday, April 23)
The Nebraska men’s and women’s throws groups, along with men’s jumpers Aaron Plas and Daniel Wasson, will participate in the Doane Relays Friday and Saturday. Each thrower competing this season will be in attendance. The Huskers will face squads from mostly in-state small colleges.

NU has experienced its fair share of success in the throw events so far this outdoor season, especially the women’s squad, which has notched five NCAA regional qualifiers. The discus is the women’s deepest event with three qualifiers in Dace Ruskule, Amber Curtis and Laura Wortmann, while Jen Steiner (shot put) and Kayla Wilkinson (javelin) have also recorded stellar performances. The men’s lone qualifier is Bubba Kramer in the shot put, but with each Husker in action this weekend, NU is primed to add more names to its qualifier list.

Nebraska will begin competition Friday at 4 p.m., while Saturday’s action starts at 11 a.m. For a recap and full results following the conclusion of the Doane Relays via the internet, visit huskers.com.

Next Up: Drake Relays & Penn Relays (April 28 - 30)
Nebraska will participate in two of the country’s most celebrated track and field meets next weekend, the Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa, and Penn Relays in Philadelphia, Pa. While only a limited number of the best Husker athletes will compete, a full list will not be available until the middle of the week.

Huskers Claim Ten Meet Titles in Norman
A large contingent of Huskers had a successful weekend during last Saturday’s John Jacobs Invitational in Norman, Okla. NU athletes combined for 10 individual titles and five new NCAA regional-qualifying performances.

NU utilized a pair of outstanding performances to sweep the men’s and women’s pole vault events. Ray Scotten cleared 18-2 1/2, two inches better than his previous best, to claim the men’s title, while Christi Lehman earned her first outdoor pole vault win of the season with a mark of 12-11 1/2.

Huskers earned the top three spots in the women’s hammer throw. Jamie Senkbile paced the field with her personal-best throw of 173-11, while teammates Laura Wortmann (171-4) and Tamara Solari (154-11) finished second and third, respectively.

For the third consecutive meet, Kayla Wilkinson proved unbeatable in the women’s javelin with her winning throw of 169-7. Dace Ruskule finished off an outstanding meet for the NU women’s throwers by claiming the discus with a mark of 177-9.

Kwonya Ferguson, who made her outdoor debut on Saturday, recorded a pair of regional-qualifying marks while winning the women’s triple jump (42-1 1/2) and placing second in the long jump (19-8 1/4).

Husker men who excelled included Aaron Plas (7-2 1/2), who earned his first regional qualification as he won the men’s high jump, and Adam Evans, who won the men’s hammer throw with a heave of 163-9. NU also swept the top two positions in the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase with Paul Wilson (9:08.24) taking first ahead of Kyle Doperalski (9:26.82). Wilson just missed regional-qualifying status by less than one second.

Other Huskers earning their first regional-qualifying marks were Nate Probasco (21.05) in the men’s 200-meter dash and Aaron Nasers (1:49.85) in the men’s 800-meter run.

Shadle, van der Westhuizen Dominate Another Event
While Anne Shadle has a stranglehold on the nation’s top time in the women’s 1,500-meter run, she added a new event to her arsenal on a weekend trip to the West Coast.

Shadle earned a pair of wins in the 800-meter run at the Mt. SAC Relays and Long Beach Invitational last weekend. While competing in the Olympic Development race at Mt. SAC, the NCAA All-American paced the field with her career-low time of 2:07.82, which made her the sixth-fastest outdoor 800-meter performer in NU history. The accomplishment was especially surprising considering that she had not run an outdoor 800-meter race since her sophomore season.

Shadle won the Long Beach Invitational the following day with a time of 2:08.1. Despite excelling in both events this season, she is expected to focus on the 1,500 during the postseason.

The same is true of Peter van der Westhuizen, who, like Shadle, recorded his second regional-qualifying mark at Long Beach. The Kempton Park, South Africa, native won the men’s 800 with a personal-best time of 1:50.29, just slipping by the regional standard. Van der Westhuizen matched his qualifying mark in the 1,500 that he set two weeks earlier at the Stanford Invitational. Similar to Shadle, he will also focus on the 1,500, not the 800, when the championship portion of the schedule arrives.

Baker Earns Silver at Walton Combined Events
Sara Jane Baker finished second during last weekend’s Audrey Walton Combined Events Carnival in Columbia, Mo. Her career-high score of 5,469 was tops among collegiate athletes, and it was also the third-best overall NCAA score of the 2005 outdoor season.

Baker set personal-best marks in three of the competition’s four events on the way to her new high score. She broke her career-best in the javelin (130-1) by nearly three feet, set a new personal-long throw of 35-6 in the shot put and lowered her best 200-meter time by 0.19 to 25.42. Teammate Ashley Selig claimed fourth place with 5,335 points, while Casie Witte’s seventh-place total of 5,072 helped her earn the first NCAA regional-qualifying mark of her career. Fiona Asigbee (unattached) won the meet with a score of 5,773.

Lee Martin was NU’s highest finisher in the men’s decathlon with a sixth-place performance in which he amassed a score of 6,660. Kyle Goerl (5,241) finished 15th.

Scotten Named Big 12 Athlete of the Week
Ray Scotten, who owns the nation’s top collegiate mark in the pole vault this season, was named Big 12 Men’s Track and Field Athlete of the Week Tuesday. He received conference recognition for the first time in his brief Husker career.

The Indianapolis, Ind., native reached a height of 18-2 ? to win the men’s pole vault by six inches Saturday in Norman. The mark is a personal best, both indoors and outdoors, for Scotten, who is No. 2 on NU’s all-time indoor and outdoor performance lists.

Scotten has experienced a tremendous first year at NU after transferring from Southern Illinois before the season. He earned silver in the pole vault at last month’s NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships and is undefeated through his first three outdoor competitions.

The Big 12 weekly honor is the fifth earned by Husker athletes so far during the 2005 season. Anne Shadle also has been named Athlete of the Week outdoors, while Priscilla Lopes, Dmitrijs Milkevics and Ashley Selig each were awarded during the indoor season.

Ferguson Makes Successful Outdoor Debut
Kwonya Ferguson must have shaken off any rust that may have collected during her long break before competing last weekend. She surely did not perform like an athlete who returned to action following more than two months off.

Ferguson made her presence felt immediately for the Husker women by notching two NCAA regional-qualifying performances on Saturday at the John Jacobs Invitational. The Melbourne, Fla., native won the women’s triple jump with a personal-best leap of 42-1-1/2 directly after earning silver in the long jump with a mark of 19-8 1/4. She became the first Husker athlete to record multiple regional-qualifying performances on the same day during the 2005 season.

Finally recovered from the strained hamstring that kept her from jumping during both the Big 12 and NCAA Indoor Championships, Ferguson should give the NU women’s team an extra boost in the horizontal events when the outdoor postseason arrives.

Huskers Fourth in Latest Dual Meet Rankings
The Nebraska men’s and women’s teams both appear in the No. 4 spot in this week’s USTCA Team Power Rankings. The Husker women won the final Indoor Power Rankings earlier this year, while the men finished sixth.

The NU women’s team appears for the first time during the 2005 outdoor season with a potential score of 344.5, roughly 10 points behind first-place Arizona State. Two other PAC-10 schools--Cal and UCLA--also sit ahead of the Huskers.

The men’s team also owns a fourth-place ranking with a score of 351.24. Florida leads the men’s dual meet rankings with a score of 379.87, while UCLA and BYU are the only other teams with a higher total than the Huskers.

The Team Power Rankings are a unique a system of rating college teams on the basis of quality of athletic performance, team depth and dual meet scoring potential. The system rates teams in the same fashion as a decathlete or heptathlete. Points are assigned for two athletes in each event contested in a dual meet and points assigned on the basis of quality of performance. The top person in each event has his/her points doubled to adjust for the value of the number one performer on each team in a dual meet. The points for all events are then totaled for the ranking score.

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 notched regional-qualifying marks with only three 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 11th 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 at the Emporia State Relays. Curtis and Wortmann have garnered respective conference rankings of fourth and fifth with their recent 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 11 more Husker freshman will attempt to earn qualifying marks.

NU Athletes Rank Among Nation’s Best
The newest set of Trackwire Top 25 rankings for the 2005 outdoor season were released on Tuesday with the Nebraska women’s team earning top-10 recognition. The women’s team improved from seventh place to a tie for sixth this week, while the men’s team fell out of the rankings after sitting at No. 16 last week.

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," the same number as in last week’s rankings. 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 the 1,500-meter run; Ashley Selig, who ranks second in the heptathlon; and Priscilla Lopes and Sara Jane Baker, who have earned respective No. 3 rankings for the 100-meter hurdles and heptathlon. Dace Ruskule and Kayla Wilkinson also rank among the nation’s top-10 competitors with sixth-place positions in the discus and javelin, respectively.

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. 13), Nenad Loncar (tie-No. 15) and Courtney Jones (tie-No. 15), rank among the top 20 in the 110-meter hurdles, while Andy Nelson (21st) and Mark Harrison (tie-38th) 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 (20th). Peter van der Westhuizen (eighth) and Aaron Plas (tie-fifth) have 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. Huskers appear in the top eight (scoring places) on this week’s Big 12 performance list 45 times (26 women, 19 men), a gain of four scoring spots from last week’s total of 41.

While Ray Scotten (pole vault) is the lone Husker men’s athlete leading an event, four others sit alone or in a tie for second place. 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, while two others own second-place positions. For a complete list of NU’s Big 12 rankings, see page 5 of this week’s track and field notes.

With three 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).

Ten Returning All-Americans to be Featured in 2005
A total of 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 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 Ashley Selig, who finished seventh indoors in the pentathlon and third outdoors in the heptathlon, and Christi Lehman, who finished ninth (eighth American) in the indoor pole vault. Thrower Becky Breisch, the 2004 NCAA discus champion, and 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 because of injury.

Dmitrijs Milkevics will aim for an NCAA title in the 800-meter run following an outstanding freshman campaign that saw him earn All-America honors by finishing sixth at both the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships. 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 Dusty Stamer, Oliver Williams Jr. and Nate Probasco.