NU Track Heads South to Texas and Emporia State

With another week of training under their belts, the Nebraska men’s and women’s track and field teams return to competition this weekend at the Texas Relays and Emporia State Relays. While the Huskers will send split squads to the events, there are several other athletes who will continue training for yet another week.

Texas Relays (Wednesday, April 6 - Saturday, April 9)
The annual four-day Texas Relays is recognized as one of the top track and field competition in the United States. The meet features some of the nation’s top collegiate talent, as well as standouts from both the high school and professional ranks. In all, nearly 5,000 athletes will compete in 125 events at this year’s event.

Along with Nebraska, some of the NCAA’s top teams will be in attendance, including seven of the top 10 finishers from the 2005 NCAA Men’s Indoor Championships and six of the top 10 teams finishers from the Women’s Indoor Championships.

NU plans to send only 22 athletes to Austin, Texas, for the Texas Relays and will compete Thursday through Saturday. Some of the top Husker men’s athletes are slated for action, including Gable Baldwin, Nic Petersen and Ray Scotten in the pole vault; Richard Davidson Jr., Courtney Jones, Nenad Loncar and Aaron Ross in the 110-meter hurdles; Dusty Stamer in the 100-meter dash; Dusty Jonas and Aaron Plas in the high jump; and Mark Harrison, Andy Nelson and Gatis Spunde in the 400-meter hurdles. Nebraska women scheduled for competition include: Frances Keating and Sheryl Morgan in the 400-meter hurdles; Keating and Priscilla Lopes in the 100-meter hurdles; Diane Dietrich and Lopes in the 100-meter dash; Ashley Selig in the long jump (section B); Sara Jane Baker in the high jump (section B); Dace Ruskule in the discus; and Jessie Graff and Christi Lehman in the pole vault.

For live updated results from the Texas Relays via the internet, please visit www.texassports.com.

Emporia State Relays (Saturday, April 9)
Several Huskers not making the trek to Texas will instead travel to Emporia, Kan., for Saturday’s Emporia State Relays. The meet will feature NU’s largest contingent so far during the young outdoor season with 45 Huskers scheduled to compete.

Nebraska men’s athletes slated to appear in Emporia include Arturs Abolins, Demea Carter, Jesse Colburn, Bryce Dickmeyer, Tom Donlin, Kyle Doperalski, Adam Evans, Kyle Goerl, Bubba Kramer, Alec Maduza, Lee Martin, Thorin Meyer, Sam Morris, Aaron Nasers, Eric Rasmussen, Daniel Roper, Matt Senske, Patrick Southern, Danny Tylka, Peter van der Westhuizen, Corlan Vonderschmidt, Daniel Wasson, LeRon Williams, Tim Williams and Paul Wilson.

Husker women competing include Amanda Benson, Danute Ceika, Amber Curtis, Ashlee Dickinson, Lindsay Finkner, Nicole Kadyszewski, Elizabeth Lange, Vanessa Maher, Betsy Miller, Kim Pancoast, Justine Roach, Jamie Senkbile, Kim Shubert, Tamara Solari, Jen Steiner, Egle Uljas, Kayla Wilkinson, Casie Witte, Laura Wortmann and Val Zajac.

For live updated results from Emporia State via the internet, please visit www.emporia.edu/athletics.

Next Up: John Jacobs Invitational (Saturday, April 16)
Nebraska will send its largest squad yet this outdoor season to the John Jacobs Invitational on Saturday, April 16 in Norman, Okla. Most of the Huskers’ top athletes will be in action at the invite hosted by Oklahoma, except for a select few of NU’s distance standouts, who will compete at the Mt. SAC Relays in Walnut, Calif.

NU Opens 2005 Outdoor Season at Stanford
The Huskers began the 2005 by making a statement at one of the country’s top collegiate meets, the Stanford Invitational. While only 30 NU athletes made the trip to compete in Palo Alto, Calif., Nebraska brought home five event titles, 24 top-eight finishes and 14 NCAA Midwest Regional qualifications.

The winning Huskers included Sheryl Morgan (women’s 400-meter hurdles), Dace Ruskule (women’s discus), Kayla Wilkinson (women’s javelin), Andy Nelson (men’s 400-meter hurdles) and Ray Scotten (men’s pole vault), while Anne Shadle (women’s 1,500 meters) and Richard Davidson Jr. (men’s 110-meter hurdles) recorded runner-up finishes.

Selig Wins Heptathlon at Cal Multi-Events
Ashley Selig, fresh off winning her first women’s pentathlon national title at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships only two weeks before, claimed the women’s heptathlon championship at the outdoor season-opening California Multi-Event Meet March 23-24. Her wind-aided score of 5,474 points defeated second-place Mackenzine Winkler of Portland State by more than 300 points.

The Lincoln, Neb., native wrapped up the two-day event by posting the top performance in two of the final day’s three events. Her outdoor-personal-best mark of 19-9 3/4 (wind aided) in the long jump placed first in the event, as did her 800-meter run time of 2:16.13. The lone event Selig failed to win on the day was the javelin, which she threw a respectable distance of 115-9.

Selig held the lead following action on day one. While unable to claim an individual event win, she still posted a career-best time of 25.32 in the 200-meter dash to help build a small lead. The 2004 bronze-medal winner in the heptathlon at the NCAA Outdoor Championships also recorded marks of 14.37 in the 100-meter hurdles, 5-4 1/2 in the high jump and 35-10 in the shot put.

Sara Jane Baker also had a successful heptathlon, finishing third with 5,055 points. Baker rallied to claim bronze following a fifth-place standing after Wednesday’s competition. Casie Witte finished sixth with a career-best 4,805 points, breaking her previous high score of 4,732.

Redshirt freshman Kim Shubert participated in Group B of the heptathlon competition, earning sixth place with a score of 4,143.

Huskers Make Push for Record Books
Seven NU athletes climbed onto the program’s all-time performance lists at Stanford, including a trio of Huskers who moved into the No. 2 all-time spot for their respective events.

Anne Shadle made her first appearance on the women’s 1,500-meter run list by becoming Nebraska’s No. 2 all-time performer with a mark of 4:14.39. Shadle trails Lisa Darley Grahm’s top time by only about two seconds (4:12.38). Ray Scotten (17-10 1/2) mirrored Shadle’s performance in the men’s pole vault, overtaking the second-place spot only behind former Husker Eric Eshbach, who sits comfortably ahead with a height of 18-8 1/4. Kayla Wilkinson also ascended to second on the women’s javelin charts with her personal-best heave of 157-10.

Other Huskers moving up the all-time performance lists included Dace Ruskule, who overtook the No. 3 slot of the women’s discus in her first competition at NU with a throw of 179-9, Peter van der Westhuizen, who became the seventh-fastest men’s 1,500-meter performer in Husker history (3:43.62), and Richard Davidson Jr., who entered the men’s 110-meter hurdle list at No. 8 with his regional-qualifying time of 13.87. Gable Baldwin just broke into the men’s all-time pole vault top-10 list with his 10th-place mark of 17-0 3/4.

Husker Distance Squad Goes Six-for-Six
Assistant Head Coach Jay Dirksen’s distance crew had an outstanding weekend at Stanford, with each of the six competing Huskers posting personal-best times in their respective events.

Anne Shadle (4:14.39) and Peter van der Westhuizen (3:43.62) led the way in the women’s and men’s 1,500-meter runs, respectively, with each ranking among NU’s all-time top-10 performers (Shadle - No. 2; van der Westhuizen - No. 7). Kim Pancoast (4:27.55) added Nebraska’s third NCAA regional-qualifying performance in the 1,500 by also setting a new career-best mark in the women’s section.

Kyle Doperalski (9:12.41) and Paul Wilson (9:15.37) each broke their own standards in the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase. Doperalski squeezed by his personal best by a little more than a second, while Wilson’s time was nearly seven seconds faster than his previous low. Eric Rasmussen (29:51.27) made NU six-for-six on the weekend by cutting almost a minute off his best-ever 10,000-meter mark of 30:45.78.

NU Athletes Rank Among Nation’s Best
The initial Trackwire Top 25 rankings for the 2005 outdoor season were released on Tuesday with both Nebraska squads earning top-10 recognition. The women’s team is ranked fifth, while the men’s team begins the season at No. 9.

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. Fourteen Huskers appear in this week’s edition of the "Dandy Dozen." For a complete list of NU athletes ranked, please see page 4 of this week’s track and field release.

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

Two Nebraska women, Anne Shadle (1,500 meters) and Ashley Selig (heptathlon) rank No. 1 in their events, and both lead by wide margins. Shadle’s 1,500-meter time is more than seven seconds faster than second-place Sara Bei of Stanford, while Selig owns a 114-point cushion in the heptathlon over Eastern Michigan’s Lela V. Nelson. Newcomer Dace Ruskule also ranks high on the women’s discus chart at No. 3 after her Husker debut at Stanford two weeks ago.

Despite a lesser number of NU men that have opened their outdoor seasons, some outstanding performances have already been recorded for the squad. Ray Scotten sits in second-place nationally in the pole vault behind BYU’s Trent Powell, while Richard Davidson Jr., one of three Huskers to appear in the 110-meter hurdle rankings, currently owns third place. Others to gain top-10 status include Peter van der Westhuizen, who is sixth in the 1,500 meters, and Andy Nelson, the ninth-place men’s 400-meter hurdle athlete.

How Nebraska Stacks Up Against the Big 12
With this year’s Big 12 Outdoor Championships merely five weeks away, NU athletes have already begun to make their presence felt on the conference scene. Those Husker athletes who have opened their outdoor seasons appear in top eight (scoring places) on this week’s Big 12 performance list 28 times (15 women, 13 men), despite having only competed during one weekend thus 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 roughly three-quarters of the Husker men’s and women’s rosters yet to compete this outdoor season, look for Nebraska to continue its strong push toward the Big 12 Championships, to be held May 13-15 in Manhattan, Kan.

Shadle Earns Big 12 Conference Honor
Anne Shadle was named the Big 12 Female Track and Field Athlete of the Week last Tuesday for her performance at the Stanford Invitational. Shadle received conference recognition for the first time in her track career after earning one award in cross country as a junior.

The South Sioux City, Neb., native recorded an NCAA-regional-qualifying time of 4:14.39 in the women’s 1,500-meter run to place second behind 2004 Olympian Nicole Teter (Nike) by a mere 1.62 seconds. Shadle’s time, which broke her previous personal best by nearly 13 seconds, propelled her to No. 2 on NU’s all-time performance list for the event.

Kansas State’s Mathew Chesang earned the weekly Big 12 men’s award after claiming an NCAA automatic-qualifying mark in the 10,000-meter run at the Stanford Invitational.

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 two weeks ago in Fayetteville, Ark. Ashley Selig and Anne Shadle both broke NU records to earn their first national titles 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.