Netraskan Pi|e
Thursday, April 18,1991
J National title within reach of NU gymnasts
IOJ I UMV vwvp^i
Staff Reporter
Should Nebraska do well enough in to
night’s qualifying round to make Friday night’s
team finals at the NCAA men’s gymnastics
championships in University Park, Penn., sen
ior Ted Dimas said the Comhuskers have a
pretty good shot at winning.
Should the Huskers win, freshman Che
Bowers said he probably will faint.
Should Francis Allen’s words prove pro
phetic, Bowers won’t be the only one fainting.
“I think all of .my guys will tell you we can
win this meet,” Allen said. “We have nothing
to lose and everything to gain.
“This is the team of the future if it’s not
already here. It’ll be nice to see all these
coaches say, Doggonit, Nebraska’s back here
again when they weren’t supposed to be. ’ If we
win it, I can’t wait to hear what they say.”
But Allen said he won”t hear any of those
comments unless his gymnasts improve their
scores on parallel bars. Two weeks ago at the
regionals meet, the Huskers scored just 44.75
on the parallel bars, dropping than from a tie
for second into fourth place.
“I told my guys (Tuesday at practice) that
with a 48 on parallel bars, we can just go get our
trophies and leave," Allen said. “Today, we
scored a 47.5 in our intrasquad meet, so they
can do it.”
Dimas said the Huskers need that score.
“Every meet, we’ve been in first place after
three or four events and then we’ve had a
————
breakdown,” he said. “Last week we were up
after two or three events and I was just unbe
lievably excited, but then 1 couldn’t have fore
told what happened on p-bars.
“But I think that’s helped us to focus; we
know where our problems are and we’ve worked
to correct them.”
Senior Brad Bryan, Nebraska’s top all-aroun
der this year, finished 19th in the individual
competition at regionals. But a virus kept him
from training as hard as he wanted to.
“I feel really good now,” Bryan said. “Be
fore regionals, I didn’t feel like I was prepared
at all. I had to rely on my competition skills to
do the best I could.”
Nebraska’s four competing freshmen will
depend on Bryan, Dimas and Josh Saegert to
cope with the intensity of the national title.
“It’s complete chaos,” said Saegert, a sopho
more who competed in pommel horse, parallel
bars and vault at the NCAA championships last
year. “There are so many people »n such a little
bitty area that you don ’ t have time to go through
your regular rituals.”
That worries Bowers.
“It’s kind of scary,” he said. “But if we don’t
worry about that and keep everybody at the
same level of intensity, we can pull this out.”
For Allen, it would cap a “pretty damn
memorable year.”
“Some of those years get cloudy,” he said,
“but I already have some pretty fond memories
of this year.
“In fact, I have some of the fondest.”
,. - «.*- . . '_a~ » .. ■ >- *■ • - ' ______J
SaicFtelffTTsuTman-'TSairyTSebraskan
Shortstop Vince DiGrandi swings at a pitch during the Cornhuskers’ game against Kearney State Wednesday.
iby Matt herek
Staff Reporter
The Nebraska baseball team used four pitch
ers to ice a five-hit victory on a cold and rainy
night at Buck Bcltzer Field.
Jerry Madison, who had pitched only one
inning this season prior to Wednesday night’s
game, started and recorded his first win of the
season in the 8-3 victory over Kearney State.
Freshman Trey Rutledge relieved Madison
in the fourth inning and pitched through the
seventh without allowing a hit and walking
only one batter.
Jeff Nollette pitched the seventh and eighth
innings and allowed two hits while striking out
two oauers.
Aaron Bilyeu, who is coming off an arm
injury, pitched the ninth. Comhuskcr coach
John Sanders said he wanted to allow Bilyeu
some pitching time in game situations.
Sanders said his team put forth a solid effort.
The Lopers had won 10 of their previous 11
games.
Husker right fielder Shawn Buchanan went
2 for 3 with two RBI while walking twice,
stealing two bases and scoring.
Buchanan batted in the game’s initial run
with a first-inning single to left field that scored
Eddie Anderson.
In the third, a Buchanan line-drive double
down the third-base line allowed Brian Me Arn
IV' >1VVI V liv/lll IJVWUM . IV •
The Comhuskers outhit the Lopers 12-5.
Nebraska scored four runs off five hits in the
fifth inning to take a 6-1 lead.
The Huskers added two runs in the sixth
with the help of two Loper errors and a Corty
Kulhanek RBI.
Kearney State scored two runs in the top of
the ninth after Aaron Bilyeu walked four straight
batters and allowed a scoring ground ball.
Kearney State.001 000 002 — 3 5 3
At Nebraska. 101 042 OOx — 8 12 0
WP—Madison (1-0) LP—Baines (4 3). KS—Ba
ines, Jelkin (5), Berger (8) and Murray N—Madison,
Rutiedge (4), Nollette (7), Bilyeu (9) and McKenna,
Arntzen, Dmges 2B—Nl Ruff, Niewenhaus N Vosik,
Buchanan, Anderson SB—Buchanan 2, McArn 2,
Kulhanek
« ii •
IA little bit of Nee, Munchkinball ana rally scoring
I A liule bit of this, and a little bit of that:
• Danny Nee will be mentioned as a candi
date to be Notre Dame men’s basketball coach.
Whether or not he should be offered or should
take the job is a matter for another lime (proba
bly next week’s column).
A drawn-out discussion, though, will hurt
Nebraska. If Nee can get the job, Nebraska
needs time to find his replacement. And as long
as the Notre Dame job remains vacant, recruits
will say to Nee, “Why should we sign with
Nebraska if you might be leaving?”
• The NCAA took a chance putting Ne
braska’s Lisa McCrady on the poster for the
1991 NCAA women’s gymnastics champion
ships. The NCAA would have looked stupid if
McCrady, not even a returning All-American,
hadn’t qualified for the meet.
But McCrady came through and will com
pete in the all-around this weekend. She is
cruising now, with an all-around victory in the
Big Eight championships and a second-place
finish in regionals.
The poster is nice, too.
And maybe a good omen. Nebraska’s Jason
Kelber was on the NCAA wrestling poster, and
he won the national championship in his weight
class.
tPaul
Domeier
• The fifth game of NCAA volleyball matches
has been changed to rally scoring. In rally
scoring, every serve counts for a point. The
side-out is eliminated. A match can end on a
serve into the net.
Well, heck, why stop there? Make basket
ball overtimes sudden death. Extra innings in
baseball should work on the one-pitch rule.
NFL overtime winners should be decided by
coin loss.
Yes, I think rally scoring in the fifth game is
stupid. Attempts to speed up sports are admi
rable, but drastically changing the most excit
ing part of the game is inane. The rules com
mittee might as well allow only two touches
per team each time the ball crosses the net. That
would speed up the games, too.
Putting rally scoring into the fifth game
destroys one of volleyball’s greatest advan
tages: The length ot a match is directly related
to the competitiveness of the match. When
Nebraska obliterates a bad Big Eight opponent,
the agony could last 45 minutes or less. A
classic battle against Penn Slate or UCLA
could go 2 1/2 hours. The last half hour, that
fifth game, is the best part.
Conversely, rout or thriller, college football
games last three hours; college basketball games,
two hours; NFL games, 3 1/2 hours.
Volleyball matches will spend four games
building toward the climax, then race to get
done with the exciting part. Stupid.
• A popular wave is swelling to lower the
basket in college women’s basketball from 10
feet to 9-feet-6 or 9-2. The new professional
women’s league already is playing with the
basket at 9-2. If the basket is lowered for the
college game, people will push to reduce the
court length.
This trend started with the smaller basket
ball for the women’s game. At first I disagreed
with that and all other changes.
I have learned to accept them, since the
changes don’t mess with basketball; they cre
ate the new sport of Munchkinball.
See DOMEIER on 14
NU electrifies
Wichita State
By John Adkisson
Staff Reporter
After suffering a disappointing loss, the
Nebraska softball team went batty Wednesday
in the second half of a doubleheader against
Wichita Slate.
The Comhuskcrs, rebounding from a 1-0
extra-inning setback, exploded in the nightcap
by racking up 11 hits and pounding the Shock
ers 9-1 in Wichita, Kan.
The Huskers scored three runs in the first
inning and tacked on four in the sixth to im
prove their record to 14-13. The game was
called after the sixth inning. Huskcr pitcher
Marie Bowie raised her record to 5-8 with the
win.
“We took it to them really well in the second
game,” Nebraska coach Ron Wolforth said.
“But I thought we played well enough to win
both.”
In the first game, Husker pitcher Stephanie
Skegas surrendered only three hits and shut out
Wichita State through the first seven innings.
But Nebraska could not muster any offense
either.
The Huskers failed to score, and Wichita
State’s Gina Blevins touched Skegas for a
game-winning single in the bottom of the in
ning for the victory.
“I thought all the way, until the single fell in,
that we were going to win the game,” Wolforth
said. “Stephanie threw well, but we just were
n’t swinging the bats very well.”
Nebraska will continue its road trip at Mis
souri-Kansas City Friday night.
First game
Nebraska.000 000 00 — 0 1 0
At Wichita State .. 000 000 01 — 1 5 2
WP—Sanchez (12-5). LP—Skegas (9-5)
Second game
Nebraska.301 014 —9 11 1
At Wichita State . . 000 010 — 1 3 4
WP—Bowie (5 8) LP—Jay (10 6)
Wednesday scrimmage
defensively un-offensive
Nebraska’s football scrimmage Wednesday
was set up like Saturday scrimmages — with
168 plays among the lop four offensive units.
Beyond the amount of plays, Wednesday’s
scrimmage for the offense had little similarity
to the Saturday scrimmages so far this spring,
Coach Tom Osborne said.
“I just had the feeling maybe we were a little
bit too relaxed,” Osborne said. “They probably
didn’t know we were going to have as major of
a scrimmage as we had. I was just really disap
pointed in some of the execution on offense.”
With first-string quarterback Tom Haase
out because of bruised ribs, Mickey Joseph,
Mike Grant and Kcithcn McCant each worked
with the first team during the 1 1/2 hour scrim
mage.
During the rain-soaked workout, the offense
committed six turnovers against a defense which
allowed only three scores in 15 drives.
After four halted drives, the offense’s first
touchdown was engineered mostly by McCant,
who threw for 55 yards on three of seven
passing attempts with cnc interception. McCant
hit Tyrone Hughes for 33 yards. George Achola’s
runs of seven and 14 yards set up Lcodis
Flowers’ touchdown from three yards out.
Three drives later, McCant again led a touch
down drive. Altera 15-yard penalty, freshman
1-back Calvin Jones ran for 22 yards. McCant
See SCRIMMAGE on 14