Huskers Open 2011 Season on Friday

The Nebraska track and field team is set to open the 2011 season on Friday, Jan. 14 when it hosts the Holiday Inn Invitational at the newly renovated Devaney Center Indoor Track. The two-day meet will then continue on Saturday when the action starts against at Noon.

The Huskers have been the winningest program in the Big 12 era and will look to add to their conference-leading 22 team titles in their last year in the league. Texas is a close second behind the Huskers with 20 league crowns and Texas A&M is a distance third with nine titles.

The Husker men's squad returns a talented group that enters the year ranked 12th in the country. 2009 NCAA indoor long jump champion Nicholas Gordon leads the way for the Huskers and is joined by fellow seniors Paul Hamilton and David Adams, who won Big 12 titles in the high jump and 5,000 meters, respectively, last season. The men also return three other All-America athletes in heptathlon school-record holder Bjorn Barrefors as well as horizontal jumpers Chris Phipps and Bobby Carter.

The No. 17 women's team is led by a trio of seniors who have either won a Big 12 title or earned All-America honors during their time at Nebraska. Reigning Big 12 pentathlon and heptathlon champion Chantae McMillan looks to continue the Huskers' dominance in the combined events, while All-American high jumper Audrey Svane will lead a young group of Nebraska jumpers. A two-time Big 12 pole vault champion and the school-record in the event both indoors and outdoors, Natalie Willer  will look to retake her spot as the conference's top vaulter in 2010.

Winning Ways
The all-time winningest track and field coach in the history of the Big 12 and the former Big Eight Conference, Nebraska Head Coach Gary Pepin will enter his 31st season at NU during the 2011 track and field season. The longest tenured active coach in Cornhusker athletics, 2011 will be Pepin's 28th season as head coach of both the Husker men's and women's track teams.

Pepin has captured a league-best 22 Big 12 titles as the Huskers' leader, which is twice as many as Texas' Beverly Kearney, who sits second on the list with 11.

In his first 30 seasons at Nebraska, Pepin has coached athletes to 56 NCAA titles, 466 All-America honors and 502 conference titles.

102 and Counting
After winning 51 Big Eight titles during the conference's history from 1974-1996, the Huskers have continued to dominate since moving to the Big 12 Conference for the 1997 season. NU has won a league-high 22 team titles during the Big 12's 14-year history, including the program's historic 100th conference team title in 2007 at the Big 12 Indoor Championships.

The Huskers added their 101st and 102nd titles during the 2009 and 2010 outdoor seasons when they became the first men's team in Big 12 history to win back-to-back team titles at the outdoor conference meet.

Nebraska also added to its lead in outdoor team titles, as it now has six on the men's side. Texas is the only other men's team to win more than one title outdoors, as the Longhorns have four.

All-America Pipeline
Nebraska has been a staple at the NCAA Indoor Championships as the men's team alone has produced 113 All-America awards.  The men's squad has been on quite a roll as they have had at least one athlete earn All-American honors at the past 20 national meets. Since the indoor championships began in 1965, the Huskers have failed to leave with at least one All-America award on just five occasions, including 1975, 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1990.

The women's team has been just as good indoors since the national meet started in 1980. Along with three straight national titles from 1982 to 1984, the Huskers have two or more All-Americans at every meet except for 2002 when they failed to earn a honor.

Home-Grown Talent
Fans of track and field in the state of Nebraska will see a lot of familiar faces this season as 67 of the Huskers' 123 athletes are Nebraska natives. Overall, the team is represented by 16 states and 11 countries.

Jumps-U
The Husker women have been arguably the top program in the Big 12 when it comes to the high, long and triple jumps. The Huskers have one at least one title in one of the events at nine of the previous 14 indoor championships and have won the triple jump crown six times, including five straight wins from 2000 to 2004. The women pulled off the clean sweep in 2004 when Na'Tassia Vice won the high jump while Ineta Radevica won the long and triple jumps.

Lopes-Schliep Tops World List
Former Husker national champion and 2008 Olympic bronze medalist Priscilla Lopes-Schliep was picked as the No. 1 women's 100-meter hurdler in the world on the recently released Track and Field News World Rankings for the 2010 season. Lopes-Schliep was one of four former Huskers listed on the top-10 world list, as three-time triple jump national champion Ineta Radevica (Latvia) was fifth in the long jump, two-time outdoor national champion Becky Breisch (US) was seventh in the discus while eight-time All-American and 2008 indoor high jump national champion Dusty Jonas (US) was ninth in the high jump.

Lopes-Schliep is coming off arguably her best season as a professional, as recorded the top time in the world in 2010 at 12.52 during her victory in London, beating out LoLo Jones' 12.55 from earlier in the season in New York. Lopes-Schliep ended the year with eight victories, including win in her final four races, and placed no lower than fourth all season at 14 meets. Lopes-Schliep also took the top spot in the Diamond League standing over Jones, which earned Lopes-Schliep the inaugural Diamond Race Trophy, a four-carat diamond worth $80,000.

Track and Field News also produced a U.S. Top-10 Rankings, with Breisch leading the way as the country's top discus thrower.  Jonas came in No. 2 on the U.S. list and was joined by current Husker Paul Hamilton, who was the highest-ranked collegiate high jumper at sixth. Nebraska was also represented in the women's high jump by former six-time All-American Epley Bullock, who was sixth, while former three-time Big 12 champion Kayla Wilkinson-Colgrove was picked sixth on the women's javelin chart. The list was rounded out by current Husker Chris Phipps, who is a two-time All-American and earned the No. 7 spot on the men's long jump list.

Record Breakers
The Nebraska track and field team had a stellar Red vs. White Intrasquad meet in December as the two teams combined to set seven meet records.

The men's jumpers highlighted the meet for the second straight year as the top long jumper broke the previous meet record of 25-5 1/4, set by Bobby Carter in 2009. 2010 outdoor long jump All-American Chris Phipps, led the way with a leap of 25-6. Phipps then set his second meet record in the triple jump with a leap of 51-10 1/2, breaking the 2006 record set by Daniel Roper.

A native of Bridegtown, Barbados, freshman Mara Weekes was a spectacle on the track, sweeping the sprints and setting three meet records.  Weekes ran 56.37 in the 400 meters, then clocked in at 24.39 in the 200 meters and ended the night by teaming with Rachel Butler, Lorena Menghia and Megan Wheatley to set a record in the 4x400-meter relay at 3:49.06.

The men's team of Jodi-Rae Blackwood, Zach Morris, Dale Erivn and Eric Lund set their own record in the 4x400 relay with a time of 3:15.73, while junior Arna Erega snapped the Priscilla Lopes' 2005 record in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.34.