Jayhawks head to Lincoln for Husker Invitational

Husker Invitational
Date February 3-4
Time Fri. – 11:30 a.m. | Sat. – 9:30 a.m.
Location Lincoln, Neb.
Stadium Bob Devaney Sports Center
 LIVE COVERAGE
TV N/A
Video N/A
Stats Huskers.com
INFO
Notes Schedule
Notes Heats: Fri | Sat AM | Sat PM
Notes Meet Notes
 SOCIAL
Twitter @KUTrack | #kutrack
Instagram @KUTrack | #kutrack
Facebook /KUTrackandField | #kutack

Notes Meet Notes

LAWRENCE, Kan. – The Kansas track & field teams will look to continue their strong start to the 2017 campaign when the Jayhawks travel north to the home of former Big 12 Conference foe Nebraska this weekend for the 42nd Annual Frank Sevigne Husker Invitational in Lincoln, Nebraska. The meet, scheduled for Feb. 3-4, will see over 600 athletes from 27 collegiate teams compete inside the Bob Devaney Sports Complex.
 
STARTERS

  • The Jayhawks will travel to compete in Lincoln for the fourth time since Nebraska hosted its final Big 12 Indoor Championship in February of 2011.
  • This weekend’s meet will reunite former Big 12 Conference foes Kansas and Nebraska. The two schools competed against one another for over 100 years as members of the Missouri Valley, Big Six, Big Seven, Big Eight and Big 12 Conferences before the Cornhuskers joined the Big Ten in 2011.
  • Kansas athletes saw victories in 15 events as the men’s and women’s track & field squads competed in their final home meet of the indoor season last week the Jayhawk Classic.
  • Freshman Gleb Dudarev jumped onto the collegiate scene with a bang in his first meet of his Kansas career, posting a collection of the school’s best weight throw marks in nearly a decade en route to the event victory. On his last journey into the cage, Dudarev unwound for a toss of 23.00 meters (75-5½), a mark that topped the rest of the collegiate field by nearly 18 feet.
  • Dudarev’s final throw was the third-farthest in program history and moved him to second on the latest NCAA weight throw rankings. After just one meet, he is the owner of four of the nine best weight throw marks in school history.
  • Junior Nicolai Ceban began his third season in Lawrence on a high note, posting a personal best and a victory throw after he got the ball out to a distance of 19.85 meters (65-1½) on his second attempt of the day. Ceban now sits at No. 3 on the 2017 NCAA shot put chart. The performance also moved him to No. 5 on the Jayhawks’ all-time indoor shot put list.
  • For the fifth-straight meet this season, a Kansas men’s pole vaulter finished on the top step of the podium as Paulo Benavides claimed the win Friday night. The sophomore out of El Paso, Texas only needed one clearance for the win, vaulting over the bar at 5.23 meters (17-1¾).
  • If the indoor season were to end today, nine Jayhawks and two KU relay teams would qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships set for March 10-11 in College Station, Texas. Kansas has seen at least one athlete earn All-America honors at the indoor meet for 20-consecutive seasons.

 
KANSAS MEN UP TO NO. 11 IN LATEST NCAA RANKINGS
Top-five performances from Jayhawk throwers Gleb Dudarev and Nicolai Ceban helped the Kansas men’s track & field squad jump nine spots to 11th in the latest top-25 rankings released by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Monday. The ranking marks the highest regular-season standing for the men’s program, indoors or outdoors, since the current ranking system began in 2008.
 
The Jayhawk men’s team currently features eight athletes and a relay squad that rank inside the NCAA’s top-15 in their respective events. The number includes three Jayhawks who have marks that put them inside the top-five in their events, all done with performances over the last two weekends.
 
Kansas is the highest ranked of the five Big 12 teams that found themselves among this week’s top-25. The Jayhawks were followed by Texas Tech at No. 14, Texas at No. 16, Oklahoma State at No. 18 and Oklahoma at No. 22.
 
DUDAREV CLAIMS BIG 12 ATHLETE OF THE WEEK HONORS
Kansas freshman thrower Gleb Dudarev was named the Big 12’s male athlete of the week after his conference-leading performance in the weight throw at the Jayhawk Classic last week. It was the second-straight Big 12 weekly honor earned by a Kansas male and the first for Dudarev in his young KU career.
 
Dudarev, who hails from Vitebsk, Belarus, jumped onto the collegiate scene with a bang Friday at the Jayhawk Classic, posting one of the nation’s top weight throw marks of 2017. On his final trip into the ring, Dudarev flung the 35-pound implement to a distance of 23.00 meters (75-5½), a mark that topped the rest of the collegiate field by nearly 18 feet. The throw was the third-farthest in program history and moved Dudarev to second on the latest NCAA weight throw rankings. His toss also marked the best weight throw by a Big 12 thrower since 2014.
 
FAMILY TIES
This year’s Kansas track & field roster includes several athletes who come from some impressive track & field family backgrounds:

  • Senior long jump specialist Sydney Conley is the daughter of Mike Conley, who won a gold medal in the triple jump at the 1992 Olympics while also breaking the world record in the event. Conley still holds the indoor American record in the triple jump (58-3¾). Sydney Conley is also the niece of KU track & field head coach Stanley Redwine.
  • Sophomore pole vaulter Paulo Benavides’ father, Paul, held the Mexican national pole vault record for 12 years.
  • Senior pole vaulter Nick Maestretti’s father, Lane, was two-time competitor in the decathlon at the Olympic Trials and at one time held the American record in the decathlon pole vault.
  • Junior Dorie Dalzell is the daughter of Greg Dalzell, who ran track at KU from 1981-86 and was a member of the Big Eight championship team. Dalzell’s grandfather, Art, also ran track and cross country at KU in 1953 where he was a member of the national championship cross country team.
  • Freshman Denzel Harper’s father, Derek, was a member of the Michigan track team and still holds the school’s indoor long jump record at 7.89 meters (25-10¾).
  • Freshman Ethan Donley’s mother, Julie, competed in the 800 meters at the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona.

 
QUICK OVERVIEW
Within its 2017 men’s and women’s rosters, Kansas returns four All-Americans, including senior long jumper Sydney Conley, who has garnered First Team All-America honors three times. Junior Sharon Lokedi is also back for the women after a breakthrough season in 2016, one which saw her claim Big 12 titles in the indoor 5,000 meters and outdoor 10,000 meters as well as First Team All-America status in both events. The KU duo is included on a women’s team that returns over 80 percent of the scorers who led the squad to fifth and fourth-place finishes at last year’s Big 12 indoor and outdoor meets.
 
On the men’s side, pole vaulter Jake Albright returns for his final year in the Crimson and Blue looking for his second conference championship in the event and leads perhaps the deepest pole vault group in the nation. Senior Mitch Cooper and junior Nicolai Ceban head up an impressive throws group primed for success in 2017. Cooper is the Big 12’s reigning discus champion and a two-time Second Team All-American, while Ceban will look to improve upon his 15th-place finish in the shot put at last year’s NCAA Indoor Championships.
 
Both the KU men’s and women’s rosters are full of new faces as nearly a third of the teams are made up of newcomers.
 
VAULTING VIRTUOSOS
The 2017 edition of Kansas track & field once again boasts one of the most talented and deepest pole vault crews in the entire country. Tom Hays’ men’s and women’s crews are comprised of both seasoned veterans and promising underclassmen who are already making national waves early in the 2017 season.
 
On the men’s side, KU features four vaulters who sit inside the NCAA’s top-15, including seniors Jake Albright, Nick Maestretti, Nick Meyer and sophomore Paulo Benavides, who moved toward the top of the national chart after stellar outings over the last month. Albright finds himself at No. 2 in the nation following his 18-foot clearance in Lexington on Jan. 21. This is a good sign for the men’s vault group that has dominated on the conference and national level over the past decade. Kansas’ male vaulters have claimed first or second team All-America status eight times and have won 11 Big 12 titles since 2007.
 
This season also looks promising for the Jayhawks’ female vaulters. Junior Laura Taylor and redshirt sophomore Alexis Romero have already worked their way into the top-10 of Kansas’ all-time vault list during their first two years in Lawrence. They are joined by freshman Andrea Willis, who has stormed onto the collegiate scene, already with a pair of event victories and the nation’s No. 19-ranked mark of the 2017 season.
 
RECORD BOOK WATCH
A host of Jayhawks entered the 2017 calendar year in good position to continue to move up Kansas’ all-time indoor record books. Thirty-two Jayhawks (12 men, 20 women) on this year’s roster currently find themselves among the top-10 performers on the school’s all-time charts. Senior Strymar Livingston, senior Hannah Richardson and junior Sharon Lokedi are the team’s three active school-record holders as Livingston is KU’s fastest in the 600 yards, Richardson the 3,000-meter record, while Lokedi boasts the school’s top 5,000-meter mark. The Eldoret, Kenya product also finds herself among the top-five in the 3,000 meters, while Livingston ranks third on the school’s 800-meter list.
 
Most recently, senior Jake Albright moved to No. 4 on KU’s indoor pole vault chart after his 5.54 meter (18-2) clearance last week at the McCravy Memorial. Sophomore Paulo Benavides joined his teammate in becoming one of the Jayhawks’ top-10 vaulters indoors with his mark of 5.45 meters (17-10½), sitting him ninth in program history.
 
Senior Whitney Adams finds herself in the top-six in three different indoor events, which includes the No. 3 times in both the 600 yards and 800 meters. Senior sprinter Zainab Sanni has worked her way into KU’s all-time top-five in both the 60 meters and the 200 meters and is joined by Sydney Conley, who ranks sixth on the 60-meter list as well as fourth on the long jump chart.
 
NEW BLOOD
The Kansas track & field program will see a major youth resurgence this year, especially on the women’s side. Both teams feature a combined 33 athletes who will don the KU singlet for the first time, which includes nearly a third (16 of the 54) of the athletes currently listed on the women’s team roster. Sixteen newcomers also comprise the 60-person men’s roster.
 
Several of those newcomers are expected to be in action for Kansas this weekend. For the men Roy Bay, Isaiah Cole, Quentin Dancer, Gleb Dudarev, Chris Gleghorn, Denzel Harper, Bryce Hoppel, Cody Johnson and Chase Pennewell are scheduled to suit up in the Crimson and Blue. The women’s team will see Chloe Akin-Otiko, Jedah Caldwell, Rachel Clowers, Callie Hicks and Andrea Willis are all competing for the Jayhawks inside Anschutz Pavilion.
 
STANLEY’S SUCCESS
Head coach Stanley Redwine has taken Kansas track & field to a level it hasn’t seen in quite some time during his first 16 years at the helm. Over Redwine’s tenure, he has seen 110 indoor and outdoor Big 12 Champions, 156 First Team All-Americans and 15 NCAA Champions come through his program at KU.
 
Redwine’s teams have also collected a combined seven top-10 NCAA team finishes, including coaching the 2013 women’s team to the program’s first National Championship at the NCAA outdoor meet.
 
AT HOME IN ANSCHUTZ
The 31-year indoor home facility for the Kansas track & field team, Anschutz Pavilion, has hosted dozens of collegiate and high school meets since 1984. In August of 2011, the facility got a major facelift when a new six-lane track (eight lanes on the sprint straightaway) was installed, which replaced the original track installed in 1984.
 
HOME GROWN
Both the men’s and women’s teams in 2017 will feature a large batch of home-grown talent as the majority of the athletes on each roster hail from the Sunflower State. Twenty-six KU men and 23 Jayhawk women call Kansas home, with the next-most prolific state, Texas, boasting a combined 13 natives.
 
Kansas also has a handful of international athletes. On the men’s side, senior thrower Mitch Cooper hails from Queensland, Australia, senior Daniel Koech (Kenya), junior Nicolai Ceban (Moldova), sophomore Hussain Al Hizam (Saudi Arabia) and Ivan Henry (Jamaica) welcome in international freshman Gleb Dudarev (Belarus). For the women, Sharon Lokedi has continued the KU tradition of bringing in some of the top international talent in the NCAA. The junior distance specialist Sharon Lokedi calls Eldoret, Kenya home.
 
ROCK CHALK PARK TO HOST 2017 JUNIOR OLYMPICS
Rock Chalk Park, the home of Kansas track & field, will play host to the 2017 USA Track & Field National Junior Olympic Championships later this summer. The meet, which will be held in Lawrence July 23-30, 2017, will welcome the nation’s top athletes between the ages 7-18.
 
USA Track & Field youth chairs selected Lawrence over Des Moines, Iowa, Dec. 5, 2015 at their convention in Houston. The bid for the event was made in conjunction with eXplore Lawrence, the city’s tourism bureau. Kansas athletics director Sheahon Zenger, associate athletic director Doug Banks and head coach Stanley Redwine made a special trip to Houston to assist in the presentation made by Sanner of eXplore Lawrence. Rock Chalk Park opened in the spring of 2014 and has played host to the Kansas Relays three times, one of the largest and longest-running high school and collegiate meets in the Midwest, and is set to be the site of Big 12 Outdoor Championship in May of 2017. The Junior Olympics will be the first USATF event held at Jayhawks’ three-year-old facility.
 
UP NEXT
Next weekend the Jayhawks will split for a pair of meets Feb. 10-11. One Kansas contingent will journey to Fayetteville, Arkansas to compete in the Tyson Invitational, while the other Jayhawk squad will travel north to Ames, Iowa where it will take part in the ISU Classic. Get live updates and results from the Jayhawks’ performances by following on Twitter and Instagram at @KUTrack.
 
 
KUAthletics.com: The official online source for Kansas Athletics, Williams Education Fund contributions, tickets, merchandise, multimedia, photos and much, much more.