KEARNEY – 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 4×4 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 4×4 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 McCookredshirt 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 Gorackewon both the weight throw (62-8) and shot (54-5.50).
The 2023 MIAA Indoor Championships are next Friday-Sunday at Pittsburg State.
