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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (May 1, 1978)
page 10 daily nebraskan monday, may 1, 1978 Walk -ons pace White squad to fourth quarter rally By Rick Huls Two walk-ons and two of the smallest football players on the team led a come-from-behind 14-13 victory for the Whites over the Reds in Saturday's 29th annual Spring Game. Kicker Dean Sukup, a walk-on from Cozad, kicked the winning 30-yard field goal with 19 seconds left before a crowd of 16,500 at Memorial Stadium. Sukup, a 6-foot-1, 200-pound redshirt junior, also kicked the game's first points, a 26-yard field goal in the first quarter, to give the Whites their only other lead of the game. Defensive end Derrie Nelson, a sopho more walk-on from Fairmont, sparked the Whites in the third quarter when he raced in from the left side and blocked a Billy Todd punt from the 33-yard line. Nelson, a 6-foot-l, 195-pounder, picked the ball up at the five-yard line and scored to cut the Red's lead to 13-9 with 17 seconds left in the third quarter. I-back Tim Wurth, 5-foot-7, 175-pound junior, was the game's leading rusher, gain ing 83 yards in 20 carries. Wurth, who scored two touchdowns in last year's game, ran for a crucial two-point conversion after Nelson's blocked punt to make the score 13-11. Split-end Scott Woodard, a 5-foot-9, 163-pounder sophomore from Papillion, was the leading pass receiver in the game with six catches for 63 yards. After catching two passes for the Reds in the first half, Woodard changed jersies and caught four for the Whites, including an important 20-yarder from quarterback Brad Humphrey on the winning drive. The Reds appeared out of trouble after Todd's 57-yard punt with 1 minute 12 seconds in the game put the Whites at their own 23-yard line. But Humphrey led the Whites to the 13-yard line to set up Sukup's field goal. The drive was helped by an 18-yard Humphrey to Anthony Branch pass and a 15 -yard tripping peanlty against the Reds. The other scores in the game came on a two-yard plunge by quarterback Jeff Quinn and 40- and 41 -yard field goals by Todd. Sukup, who kicked two 52-yard field goals his freshman season, said he had all the confidence in the world on the game winning kick. 'I knew it was good. It was a fairly k shorts UNL's women's golf team finished fifth in the six -team Big Eight Conference tour nament that ended Saturday. Oklahoma won the meet with a total of 653 to Neb raska's 675. UNL was led by Nan Circo who had a two-round total of 1 62 to finish six individually. Three of the five Nebraska rowing teams that reached the finals of the Midwest Rowing Championships in Madison, Wis. Saturday won medals. The women's light weight varsity four won their race, the men's lightweight varsity eight took second in their race and the freshman women's eight was third in their race. Nebraska's baseball team avenaged Fri day's double-header loss to Iowa State by sweeping two games from the Cyclones Saturday, 9-1 and 7-3. UNL had 25 hits in the two games won by sophomores Tim Pettit and Gary Nolt ing, respectively. The wins gave Nebraska a 31-20 overall record and a 4-6 record in the Big Eight. Missouri and Oklahoma clinched divi sion titles in the conference with wins over the weekend. UNL closes out its home sea son by hosting Morningside CoDege in a 1.30 p.m. double-header Tuesday at the NU diamond. short one and all I had to do was keep my head down," said Sukup, who was mobbed by teammates after the kick. Head coach Tom Osborne was pleased with the performance of the placekickers and the punting game, which was without regular Tim Smith. "Scott Gemar (who averaged 43 yards on five kicks) showed he can punt well although I would have liked to have seen more hang time," Osborne added. The sixth year Husker coach said he also was pleased with the improved passing game. "Well be a better passing team next year," Osborne said. "Scott Woodard had some nice catches and so did a few others." . 6jKW',"''"",',N-' i h ,, . ,., immmmmmiul:t iiTn-nfiitiiitliiiii.rMriiif mriiiniii hiii ! iilnil i nr. rim nmtm lid Vm'Tii, - i i -ft W I W ,i. (, J Photo by Ted Kirk Senior running back Rick Berns breaks free for some of the 61 yards he picked up in Saturday's 29th Spring Game. The White team beat the Reds 14-13 on a last se cond field goal by Dean Sukup. Woodard agreed that the passing game will be better. "We have a lot of guys who can catch the ball," he said. "Well come around and be pretty good." Woodard, who has 4.5 speed in the 40 yard dash, said he was also impressed with the defense. 'They've improved a lot and are very physical," he said. The defensive backfield is pretty good, they're always right there even if we do catch it." One of the biggest smiles in the locker room was worn by Fairmont native Nelson. "I bet half of the town was there to day," Nelson said. "One thing about a small town, they really back you up." Nelson said he took advantage of the situation to block Todd's punt. "We always send both ends but since Billy Todd is left-footed the up-back was on the other side," he said. "I just couldn't believe it was happening." While Nelson and I-back Wurth were pleased about winning Saturday, both said they had a disappointing spring because of injuries. "I Sprained an ankle pretty badly at the first scrimmage," Nelson said, "so. I hobbled around most of the spring." Wurth said he was hampered by injuries most of the time, including a neck injury which caused him to wear a collar for Sat urday's game. "I pulled two hamstrings early in the spring and that bothered me, too." Wurth said. "But I'm happier than last year be cause we won this time." First string quarterback Tom Sorley did not remember much afrer Saturday's game. Sorley, who hit five of six passes for 53 yards in the opening quarter, left the game after being tackled by linebacker Dan LaFever. "That's the first ever in a football game that I didn't remember anything," Sorley said. "The doctor said I was OK at half time but the coaches told me they'd keep me out." One of the ironic happenings of the game involved Husker offensive tackle Kelvin Clark from Odessa, Texas and his brother, Dave, a transfer from the Univer sity of Texas-El Paso. "My dad was up here watching the game and he said he watched us fight for 17 or 18 years," Kelvin said, "and he comes up here to watch us go at it again." Kelvin lined up against defense tackle Dave during the entire scrimmage. Omaha gymnast is world-class competitor By Mary Ryan Jim Hartung may be one of the few 17-year-old people to suffer terminal jet lag. The Omaha South High School gymn astics sensation, who signed a national letter of intent with UNL a week ago, is sharpening his skills in order to compete in the upcoming international competitions. Hartung is working toward the World Games this summer. He said the top ten gymnasts from the VS. Championships in June at UCLA will attend a training camp in France. He said he is also working toward the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, the 1979 Pan American Games and hopes to "have a successful college gymnastics career." A trip to Moscow would not be a first for Hartung. He just returned from a three week tO'T of Russia where he finished seventh and tenth in a field of 48 competit ors in two competitions. Hartung said the trip with the junior USA team was to show the Soviets what kinds of things the Americans were doing and to learn from them Besides Russia. Hartung has competed in South Africa, New Zealand, West Germany, England and Hungary. In Hungary, in March, he placed third in a field of 24 athletes. Hartung's highest personal scores are a 56.55 out of a possible 60 in the all-around and a 9.7 out of 10 in the pommel horse. He said the high bar is his weakest event and valuting and the pommel horse his strongest. A difficult pommel horse trick, the Thomas Whirl (named after Kurt Thomas of Indiana State), is one of Hartung's latest accomplishment. "I was going to put it in for Russia," he said. But there was not enough time to work it into his new routine. Hartung's high school record includes being the national high school champion twice, Nebraska state champion three times and winning 18 gold medals in three years of state competition. Hartung got his start in gymnastics when he was six years old because his brother and sister were competing. But he said his parents were the driving force be hind hi career. "My parents wuc the biggest in fluence." he said "The finance every thing, are interested and they attend all the meets it's possible for them to attend." Hartung said he expects UNL to challenge for the Big Eight and NCAA championships next year if redshirt Ail American Larry Gerard's ankle injury heals. "If Larry's ankle heals like it's supposed to, we can beat Oklahoma with (Bart) Conner and whoever else they have." "If Barry Cook, Chuck Chmelka and Mark Williams (other UNL gymnasts) show as much improvement as they did this year, we have a good chance of winning," he said. Hartung said he made up his mind to attend UNL last fall, but had at one time considered attending New Mexico, Okla homa and Southern Connecticut. "If I had not gone here, I would have gone to Southern Connecticut," he said. Head coach Francis Allen said he will be careful not to overwork Hartung. "He's our best prospect," Allen said. "We can't take any chances of killing him. It's nice having a great gymnast. I've already had good ones and it's nice to have a really grat one."
