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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 4, 1996)
Big Notebook The Nebraska baseball team’s 8 2 win over Oklahoma on Wednes day afternoon saved the Comhuskers from falling into last place in the Big Eight. The Comhuskers, whose roster features 24 newcomers, raised their Big Eight record to 3-8 in the league. The Sooners, 8-3 in Big Eight play, are a half-game ahead of Oklahoma State and Missouri. The Cowboys were swept in a pair of games at Kansas on Tuesday and Wednesday. Kansas State is 2-3 in the con ference and Kansas is 6-7. Iowa State, the only Big Eight team other than Nebraska with a sub-.500 over all record, is 2-8 in the league. Con ference play will not get any easier next year for the Huskcrs in the Big 12. Texas Tech is ranked second na tionally behind defending national champion Cal State Fullerton, and Texas is ranked 24th in the nation. * * * Last week was productive for a pair of Kansas baseball players. Freshman Chris Williams was named Big Eight pitcher of the week. Williams, from Edmond, Okla., fired 7 2/3 scoreless innings last week. He holds a 2-0 record in seven appearances. Against Mis souri, sophomore Casey Barrett racked up his sixth save, which ties him for the second-highest total in a season at Kansas. Missouri outfielder Matt Nivens hit .476 (10 for 21) last week, earn ing the Big Eight position player of the week. As the Tigers lead-off batter, Nivens reached base in 27 of Missouri’s first 28 games. * * * On the softball diamond, Big 12 competition has started one season ahead of the rest of the league this spring, and the conference is far ing well in the polls. In the latest USA Today/National Softball Coaches’ poll, Oklahoma ranked 12th, Texas A&M 13th and Ne braska 17th. * * * During the outdoor season, the Nebraska men’s and women’s track and field teams have picked up right where they left off in the indoor sea son. On the men’s side, the Comhuskers lead the Big Eight with five individual NCAA provi sional qualifiers. The qualifiers arc hurdlers Willie Hiblcr, Frank Mensah and Miklos Roth, hammer thrower Greg Armitagc and high jumper Shane Lavy. On the women’s side, shot putter Tressa Thompson is one of only two automatic individual NCAA quali fiers in the Big Eight. The Huskers also have three provisional qualifi ers. They are: hammer thrower Doreen Heldt, heptathlete Janet Blomstedt and shot putter Paulette Mitchell. * + * The NCAA Division I Directors’ Cup competition, which ranks schools using 22 Division-I sports, has Nebraska ranked eighth after its indoor track performances. Nebraska’s men finished second and the women were fifth. UCLA leads the competition, and Nebraska’s Big Eight rival Colo rado is fourth. Notebook compiled by «tafT reporter Vbice D’Adamo. * By Todd Walkenhorst Staff Reporter Just when the Nebraska baseball team appeared to be incapable of com peting against th<j upper echelon of the Big Eight, the Comhuskcrs pulled off a shocker at Buck Bcltzer Field on Wednesday afternoon. After losing its last two games to conference (rowers Oklahoma State and Oklahoma by a combined score of 42-15, Nebraska beat 21 st-ranked Oklahoma 8-2 behind a complete game from Pat Driscoll. The Huskers have had problems this season finding strong pitching, but one night after using six pitchers in a 24-7 loss to the Sooners, Nebraska was able to hold Oklahoma in check with one pitcher in front of a crowd of 123 fans. Oklahoma, 21-11 and 8-3 in Big Eight play, jumped ahead 2-0 on sec ond baseman Jesse Zepeda’s two-out single in the second inning, scoring Brian Shackleford and Jamie Gann. Shackleford and Gann were the Sooners’ primary sources of offense Wednesday. Shackleford was 3 for 4 and Gann was 2 for 4. The pair com bined for five of Oklahoma’s six hits and scored the Sooners’ only two runs. Driscoll (171) took advantage of his first start by pitching a complete game eight-hitter. The junior college trans fer from Neosho (Kan.) Community College allowed only three hits after the second inning, posting Nebraska’s first complete game of the season. Nebraska coach John Sanders was impressed with Driscoll’s command of his pitches. “The performance was outstand ing,” Sanders said. “This Oklahoma team is one of the best teams they’ve had in a long time.” Nebraska (11-18-1 and 3-8) did not collect a hit off Sooner starter Joe Victery until the fourth inning when senior right fielder Mel Motley hit a one-out triple. The Huskers took ad Viola leads NU to win over ISU By Mike Kluck Senior Reporter For more than a year, one play has haunted Ali Viola. Last season Viola had a chance to provide Nebraska with a game-win ning hit that would have allowed the Comhuskers to sweep their series with Iowa State. With two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning, the bases loaded and the Huskers down one run, Viola came to the plate facing Cyclone pitcher Debbie Nease. But Viola was unable to produce, hitting a weak grounder to second base as the Huskers lost 6-5. Viola, a second-team All-Arriteri can, went on to earn 1995 Big 8ight player-of-the-year honors and set school records for hits (87), home runs (13), RBI (72), total bases (149) and assists (160), but she knew she owed Nease and Iowa State. On Wednesday, Viola had her chance. With two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning, Viola came to the plate against Nease. “I was going to go hard,” Viola said. “I knew ahead of time I was going to swing at the first pitch. So I stepped in the box and I just took my biggest cut.” The cut against a high fastball turned into a two-run home run, which gave the 23-11 Huskers a 9-7 win over the Cyclones in Nebraska’s first-ever Big 12 Conference regular-season See WIN on 8 Jay Calderon/DN Nebraska freshman Craig Moore slides into third base Wednesday afternoon as Oklahoma’s Israel Gonzalez tries to apply the tag. The 8-2 Husker victory was Nebraska’s first win over a ranked opponent this season. vantage of the hit when first baseman Jason Fry lined an RBI double to right field. Fry, in replacing sophomore Todd Sears — who suffered a bruised right foot after fouling a pitch off Tuesday night — finished 2 for 4 with three RBI and one run scored. Designated hitter Craig Moore scored Fry on a two-out double to tie the game at two. The Huskers took the lead in the sixth when senior left fielder Matt Meyer scored on a Motley single. The seventh inning looked favor able for Victery as he struck out catcher Scott Schultz to begin the in ning. But the ball rolled away from Sooner catcher Javier Flores, allow ing Schultz to advance to first. Francis Collins reached safely on a bunt and Meyer was intentionally walked, leaving the bases loaded for Motley. Motley grounded out, scoring Schultz, and then Fry singled to score Collins and Meyer to put the Huskers ahead 6-2. 'Victery, who fell to 6-2, was re placed by junior Brett Pennington in the eighth. Victery finished the day giving up six runs on nine hits, with four walks and five strikeouts. Nebraska added two insurance runs off Pennington in the eighth inning. “I told them before the game that baseball is a game where you can turn the page very easily and put the pre vious day behind you,” Sanders said. After having nine games canceled this season because of bad weather, Nebraska has scheduled two double headers later this season to fill the holes in its schedule. The Huskers will play host to Nebraska-Omaha onApril 25 at 4 p.m., and on May 6, Nebraska will play two games against Peru State at Buck Beltzer Field at 2:30 p.m. Next up for Nebraska is a three game series against Oral Roberts Fri day, Saturday and Sunday at Buck Beltzer Field. Good grades a habit for NU’s gymnasts By Gregg Madsen Staff Reporter Before the Nebraska women’s gymnastics team accepted its third NicoHni room. consecutive Big Eight Championship trophy Satur day night in Ames, Iowa, five Cornhuskers were honored for their work in the class JNeorasica s joy layior, Mm DeHaan, Shelly Bartlett and Misty Oxford all were named to the first team of the 1996Academic All-Big Eight team. Senior Meghan Nicolini received honorable men tion. DeHaan and Taylor, both bio logical science majors, joined Oklahoma’s Michelle Antinoro in receiving special recognition for maintaining a 4.0 grade-point av erage. Taylor, who won the all-around title with a Big Eight-record 39.375, has been a first-team selection for four consecutive years. “It’s not something I’m always thinking about,” said Taylor, a se nior from New Palestine, Ind. “It’s not like I say: 'I’ve got to keep that 4.O.’ It’s just been a habit that I haven’t had to think about.” DeHaan, a junior from Sioux Falls, S.D., has been an academic all-conference selection in each of her three seasons at Nebraska. On Saturday, she won the uneven bars with a 9.9 and tied for first in the floor exercise with a 9.85. Bartlett, a junior all-arounder who is majoring in education, owns a 3.82 GPA. “We study a lot,” Bartlett said. “We study on bus and plane trips all the time, and then if we have time in the hotel rooms, we study. Coach Dan Kendig hasn’t made an effort to control the athletes’ study habits — he hasn’t had to. “That’s the key. They are deter mined,” Kendig said. “Yeah, I make a point of making sure that they’re in classes. But I can’t control how well they do on tests. It comes down to their determination, and I think that has been contagious.” The desire has spread to fresh man Misty Oxford, who holds a 3.64 GPA after taking a year off to improve her SAT score following her senior year of high school. Oxford was named the confer ence newcomer of the year Satur day and finished second in the all around with a career-high 38.9. Nicolini, a senior psychology major from Annapolis, Md., has a 3.34 GPA. Kendig said Nicolini had improved dramatically in the class room this semester. Nebraska’s academic success hasn’t been limited to the Big Eight. The Huskers won the 1995 aca demic national championship and finished second in 1994. Gymnast fights back after injury By Gregg Madsen Staff Reporter After a two-year absence from com petition, the gymnast labeled “the next Reive Jim Hartung by Nebraska men’s gymnastics coach Francis Allen is back. Hartung, a two time NCAA all around champion and 1982 Nissen Award winner at Nebraska, was a two-time uiympian ana a goia mea alist in 1984. Hartung’s a tough act to follow. But J.D. Reive is going to try. Reive, a true freshman from Fair Lawn, N.J., has been sidelined this sea son by a slightly cracked vertebra in his lower back, an injury that he origi nally suffered in April 1995 and ag gravated last December. Coming back from that injury, Reive said, has not been as easy as he would have liked. “I was able to train for a few months after 1 was first injured back in 1995," he said. “But then this December I hurt it again. 1 have this bad habit of working out until I hurt myself." This season, Reive has endured a rigorous upper-body strength regimen that has kept him in shape and enabled him to get back into action. Allen said Reive’s workouts were just another example of his desire to to be the best. See REIVE on 8
