MIAA Championships Up Next
Kearney, Neb. – Wes Ferguson, Gabrielle Oborny and Micah Swedberg set school-records and Brayden Sorensen had a season-best effort in the high jump to lead Nebraska Kearney Friday night in Kearney and Lincoln.
This is the final weekend of the regular season with UNK's field athletes and a few runners facing Nebraska Wesleyan at the Loper Tune Up in Cushing Coliseum with a host of runners in Lincoln for the annual Nebraska Tune Up. At the Devaney Center, Ferguson (Fremont) not only broke an 11-year-old school-mark at 600 meters but also turned in the second fastest time in Division II history. His 1:15.96 was nearly two seconds faster than runner up Niko Schultz of UNL, is almost four seconds better than Matt Shipp managed in 2012 (2:19.67) and is just off the 1:15.31 turned in by Colorado State-Pueblo's Thomas Staines in February 2019. Ferguson now holds UNK indoor records in the 600, 800 (1:48.25) and 1,000 (2:23.80) and is a member of the fastest distance medley and 4x4 relay teams. His time in the 1,00 also ranks tops in D2 history.
To cap the evening, Ferguson was the anchor for the second place 4x4 relay team (3:16.88). That is the third best time in Loper lore and not too far off the record (3:15.62), set a year ago at conference. Also running was Swedberg (Gothenburg) and true freshmen Tyson Baker (Fremont) and Conner Wells (St. Paul). Earlier, Swedberg placed third out of 27 in the 400 with a school-record 48.45. That best the 48.50 Casey Marsh ran 21 years ago. Finally at UNL, Firth freshman Tanner Cooper won the 800 (1:54.37), David City sophomore Payton Davis won the 3,000 with the seventh fastest time (8:27.50) in school history and Kearney redshirt sophomore Nicole Messbarger moved up seven spots to third all-time in the 800 (2:14.44). On the home track, Sorensen (Kearney) cleared 7-0.25 to easily win the high jump. That is just off his own UNK standard (7-0.50) and marks the fourth meet this winter he's reached at least 6-10.75. Oborny (David City) has also been the model of consistency, now having four meets reaching at least 12-0 in the vault. She went 12-5.25 tonight, besting the Loper stand of 12-4.75 set by Brooke Frederick in February 2014.
In the throws, Kearney redshirt freshman Lily Novacek won the weight throw with a season-best effort of 59-5.75 with McCook redshirt sophomore Makenzie Smith having a season-best toss to win the shot (45-4.25). Novacek remains fourth on the UNK all-time list and is 20th nationally.
Finally, Creighton redshirt sophomore Alex Homan won the vault with a season-best 16-5.25 and Giltner redshirt junior Alex Goracke won both the weight throw (62-8) and shot (54-5.50). The 2023 MIAA Indoor Championships are next Friday-Sunday at Pittsburg State.
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