Pago 8
Daily Nebraskan
Tuesday, March 17, 1987
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Ogrodowicz quick at the plate,
fast on the paths, Wolfortii sayj
By Rich Cooper
Staff Reporter
Nebraska's Margie Ogrodowicz is
one of the fastest female softball play
ers in the country. J ust ask Cornhusker
coach Ron Wolforth.
Last weekend at the Roadrunner
Classic in Los Cruces, N.M., Ogrodo
wicz, a junior from Houston, hit three
inside-the-park home runs and batted
.219.
Ogrodowicz signed with Texas Tech
after graduating from high school. When
the Red Raiders dropped their softball
program at the beginning of her
sophomore season, former Husker coach
Wayne Daigle convinced infielder 0
grodowicz and freshman catcher Katie
Wolda to come to Nebraska.
"We were really lucky that we got
those two," Wolforth said. "Wayne had
recruited Margie out of high school,
and when Texas Tech dropped their
program, schools like Texas A&M and
Louisiana Tech didn't think much of
her, so they didn't recruit her."
Last year for the Huskers, Ogrodo
wicz batted .327 and had 22 stolen
bases and an on-base percentage of
.425 with 15 runs batted in. Wolforth
couldn't think of any other college
player who had accomplished that.
Ogrodowicz said her childhood in
terest in softball and baseball stemmed
from the fact that her father was the
president of a baseball league. During
the summer of her freshman year of
high school, Ogrodowicz began playing
for the Houston Aires, a team that trav
els around the country playing in top
ranked tournaments.
Ogrodowicz said she never played
softball at Lamear Houston, her high
school, but she was active in volleyball,
basketball and track. Upon graduation,
Ogrodowicz said, she was interested
only in playing softball.
Ogrodowicz was named the most
valuable player of the Texas Tech team
in her first year. She said the key to her
success has been consistent hitting.
"Coach Wolforth always tells us that
we have to be aggressive at the plate
and not wait for the right pitch," she
said. "If the first pitch is there, I'm not
afraid to jump on it, because, most
likely, that's going to be the pitcher's
best pitch."
Wolforth said he knows Ogrodowicz
is likely to make something happen
evey time at the plate.
"Margie is a fun player to watch," he
said. "She's so quick that if the infielder
bobbles the ball, she's on base. If she
gets to base, there's a good chance
she's going to score."
Ogrodowicz scored 44 times last year
for Nebraska in 64 games. Last week
end, she scored seven times in the
Huskers' 10 games.
Ogrodowicz said she thinks the
Nebraska team is better prepared to
play this year and won't take any team
on its schedule lightly. She said
Nebraska has the talent to win a lot of
games this year, as long as the players
work as a team.
By Rich Cooper
Staff Reporter
"New maturity
helps pitcher
to zero ERA
Nebraska softball pitcher Donna Deardorff
said she has been playing softball since third
grade because it is fun.
Deardorff said she began playing softball
in third grade, but like almost every kid, she
never took it very seriously.
"When I was a kid I played pick-up games
in the street just because I thought it was a
lot of fun," Deardorff said. "I never thought
about pitching softball. I played a lot of dif
ferent positions because all I wanted to do
was play."
The junior from Villa Park, Calif., has been
a vital part of Nebraska's pitching staff this
season, Cornhusker coach Ron Wolforth said.
So far this year, Deardorff has an ERA of zero.
During the fall season she was 3-1 and all
three of her victories were shutouts.
Wolforth said Deardorff is having so much
success this season because she has matured
emotionally.
"Donna has matured a lot emotionally and
has become more aware of what she must do
on the field," Wolforth said.
Wolforth said another reason for her suc
cess is that Deardorff is calling her own
pitches. Last year, Wolforth said, former
Husker coach Wayne Daigle called all the
pitches.
"Calling your own pitches takes a lot of
responsibility, but she has handled that
well," Wolforth said. "Donna is a free spirit,
kind of like Brian Bosworth, and with those
type of people you have to let them go
because that is when they are at their best."
Deardorff said she began pitching when
she was in seventh grade. When she got to
high school at Villa Park, Deardorff was the
only pitcher on the team. She said she
enjoyed pitching because she liked playing in
every game. Her best season at Villa Park,
Deardorff said, was her junior year when her
team made the semifinals of the California
High School Championships.
Deardorff said that once she got out of high
school she decided to go to the Ron LeFevre
School of Pitching, which helped her get
notice from major college coaches.
Deardorff said when she was choosing a
college, the choice was between Indiana and
Nebraska. She said she chose Nebraska
because of what NU had to offer and because
the facilities were "very good."
Wolforth said that on Nebraska's pitching
staff any pitcher on the team could go to any
school in the country and step in as a starter.
He said the three pitchers complement each
other and work well together. Last fall,
Nebraska's pitching staff had a combined
ERA of .29 and it only allowed a total of four
earned runs in 14 games.
Deardorff said the pitching staff appears
so good because they have a great defense
behind them.
"We wouldn't be great pitchers it we didn't
have a great defense behind us," Deardorff
said. "If this team plays as a team, then we
could do very well, but that is only if we play
together.
"As for our pitching staff we are better this
year because we know more about each other,
and if somebody has a bad inning, then we
help get them back up. We complement each
other, which is good."
Deardorff said this spring will be another
tough season because everybody will be play
ing to beat Nebraska. Since the Huskers have
won the Big Eight Conference title three
years in a row, every Big Eight team will be
coming after them, she said.
"We have just as much of a chance as
anybody else does of going all the way," Dear
dorff said. "Every team in the Big Eight wants
us, and they will look to get us, every single
game we play is going to be tough."
Deardorff said that if the Huskers are to
win the Big Eight title for the fourth time,
they cannot overlook any teams in the Big
Eight. In some ways, she said, if Nebraska can
come out on top in the conference, it will
have a chance to win the national title.
Deardorff said the good part about this
season is the coaching of Wolforth and his
positive attitude. '
Deardorff said she plays only because she
enjoys the game.
"I love to play softball," Deardorff said. "As
long as it's fun I will continue to play, but the
moment it stops being fun, that's when it
might be time to hang it up.
"But right now I come to practice because I
want to, and that is because I like playing for
Nebraska and because we have great coaches."
Higln altitude action alters climbers attitudes
MOUNTAINEERS from Page 7
One of Johnson's recent climbs, he cross
country skiied 20 miles with a 75-pound pack to
get to the base of Wyoming's Gannett peak.
'The whole time we were there, we didn't see
anybody, just tracks and snow," he says. "It's
almost like being on another planet. This group
of people with a common goal. Life becomes
really simple you don't use money. You don't
know what's going on in the world."
The climbers were snowed in their tents for
two days, but made it to the top when the day of
the final ascent dawned clear.
"It's just one of those kinds of experiences
you remember the rest of your life."
Many climbers are deeply affected by climbing
experiences. For some, the affection becomes an
addiction.
"A lot of them want to get right back in,"
Johnson says. "It's a highly physical stimulation
in an almost drug kind of sense. As with any
other addiction, you have to try more and more to
become as stimulated as you are initially.
That's why some people take unnecessary
chances, climbing solo or on peaks that are
beyond their ability."
Gabelhouse succumbed to the addiction for a
while after graduating from high school in 1968.
He moved to the mountains and became a
climbing bum, drifting around doing odd jobs
and taking unnecessary chances with his life.
Then he, like many active climbers, came to
the junction w here he had to choose to be a "real
person" or a "real climber."
Some chose to be outcasts.
"As far as the normal social constraints, they
don't really fit in at all. They don't feel com
fortable with other people ... the only way that
they can feel normal is to be in some kind of a
mountaineering expedition.
Gabelhouse chose another path. He has a
wife, a daughter, a career. Things that
don't matter much' to most hardcore
climbers.
But his personality has been altered by climb
ing. "It ruins you for a lot of common-day life," he
says. "What we have here is pretty boring. When
I'm in a home or business environment, I need as
much stimuli and as much action. I'm always
pushing as hard as I can."
He still takes chances.
' Although climbers continously stress the
sport's safety, potential danger is part of its
attraction, Johnson says. The unexpected or
unforseen always happens on a mountain.
Weather can be an ally or a powerful enemy.
Sylvia Wiegan, a UNL math professor who with
her husband has climbed all over the world,
remembers being snowed in a tent for two days
at 20,000 feet. She ripped up her journal to make
a deck of cards for bridge. It was more important
to try to forget the danger than it was to record
and remember it.
"You're in real wilderness, where things can
happen to you that are very bad, most of them
fatal."
Gabelhouse has carried climbers' corpses
down mountains. He's also worried that someday
he might be the one dead.
There have been close calls, most of them on
the mountain he's tried to climb five times and
can't stop wanting to conquer Mt. Kenya.
On one expedition, he and his partner were
bombarded with rocks as they lay sleeping in
their tents.
Another time, the fluid in Gabelhouse's brain
became unbalanced in the high altitude, a
condition he's read about called cerebral
pulminary edema. He passed out on a cliff and
when he woke up the next day in a brightly-lit
African hospital, he thought, for a minute, that
he was in heaven. '
When the Klatlanders can't climb, mountains
are in their thoughts and conversations. Climbers
say each mountain has its own magic.
"There's a real high associated with achieving
a goal," Johnson said.
Cooper will never forget the feelings he
experienced on his first Colorado climb. About
400 feet up a steep cliff, he was awestruck and a
little afraid to see birds soarir.g below him.
Nearby, a large pine, uprooted by gravity, slid
down the mountain and crashed into a ravine,
trailed by a stream of rocks.
Afterward, there were painful bruises, aching
muscles, bloody fingertips, and cold beers.
But there was something else, too an
exhilaration. An adrenalin rush.
"You remember how neat it was getting that
high and you kind of forget about the fear," he
says;
Osterman, too, remembers spectacular views
traversing across a glacier at moon rise by the
light of headlamps; watching the sun come up
over a panoramic view accented by colors
playing off the ice; seeing gentle smoke of Mt. St.
Helen's rising in the distance.
Such scenes deserve celebration. Osterman
has dragged along ice cream and honeydew
melons for the moment of victory at the top.
"One friend of mine liked to haul up bottles of
sparkling grape wine and pop the top off at
various altitudes to see how high it would go."
Ebel, who has worked with many serious
climbers, believes that Plains people have a
greater appreciation for the mountains than do
their Colorado counterparts.
"People living in the area are concerned over
their own survival," he says. "(But) a person
who's lived out on the Plains, seeing grass or
grain products grow . . . They see mountains up
there and desire to climb them. They're mystified
by mountains. It's appreciating something you
don't have."
And the tradition seems to perpetuate itself.
Gabelhouse and Wiegard are raising new
generations of Plains climbers. Wiegard says her
son already does more climbing than she does.
. Gabelhouse has a photo of his daughter
Melindi, nearly dwarfed by the climbing rope she
she carries.
"As I get older, somebody's going to have to
lead the climb. She'll go ahead and pull me up,"
he says.