‘Big 12 moves ahead’
By David Wilson
Staff Reporter
The NCAA is changing rapidly,
according to Big 12 Conference Com
missioner Steve Hatched, and change
is what the Big 12
is all about.
“This is a confer
ence of great sig
nificance,”
Hatchell said
Thursday night,
speaking to the Ne
braska Press Asso
nation at tnc rirst
Hatrhpll Bank Bui,dinS in
naicnen dowtown Lincoln.
“This is a conference of leaders. What
the Big 12 will be positioned to do is
not to follow NCAA legislations, but
to generate NCAA legislations.”
The Big 12, which will begin com
petition in August, joins the Big Eight
Conference with four teams from the
Southwest Conference: Baylor, Texas
A&M, Texas Tech and Texas. Big 12
competition in softball began this
spring.
“Was the Big Eight in trouble? No,”
Hatchcll said. “Was the Southwest
Conference in trouble? Everyone says
yes, it was going away. What they’ve
done is forged ahead and made a re
ally significant conference, which is
now the Big 12. This is not an expan
sion of the Big Eight. This was a
merger of a whole new conference.”
Hatched said he expected the con
ference to be competitive in ad 18 of
its sports. He said the conference
would be a national power in football.
Seven Big 12 teams finished among
the top 20 in the country last season,
including national champion Ne
braska.
The new conference will stay ahead
financially with a new television pack
age that will go into effect next fad.
The five-year TV plan will help keep
the conference together. Hatched said.
The package caters to 19.6 million
television sets in the Big 12 viewing
area.
“This is now the most significant
television package, financially, of any
conference in the United States,”
Hatched said. “There is a price to pay
for that. We have to put a lot of games
on TV.”
The conference football champion
ship will be staged in St. Louis’ TWA
Dome. The game will pit the top team
from the North Division of the confer
ence against the winner of the South
Division.
“St. Louis has a spectacular foot
ball facility in the TWA Dome,”
Hatched said. “I think it’s like Joe
Robbie Stadium with a roof. They have
built the convention center right into
it so we can do ad of our hospitality in
the center next door.”
Hatchell, who was named the first
commissioner of the Big 12 Confer
ence on March 26, 1995, has served
as a student, administrator and official
in the framework of the Big Eight and
Southwest Conferences for 25 years.
From 1987-93, Hatchell served as
the executive director of the Orange
Bowl. In 1992, he helped with the de
velopment of the college football bowl
coalition, which helped to crown an
undisputed national champion.
The coalition also limited the num
ber of bowl tickets allowed to each
participating school. Like the Fiesta
Bowl last year, only about 500 tickets
will be allotted to students from each
school at next year’s Sugar Bowl in
New Orleans, La, Hatched said.
As part of the bowl coalition, the
Sugar Bowl will play host to the na
tional championship game in January.
The prestigious national image of
the conference. Hatched said, will im
prove its universities in many ways.
“It’s significant,” he said. “How
many TV sets do you have? If you want
Danny Nee to be good, he has to be
able to walk in and say, 'Son, you’re
going to be seen. We’ve got big-time
TV contracts and we’re in that confer
ence.’”
NU tennis
to face
OU, OSU
By Vince D’Adamo
Staff Reporter
The Nebraska men’s and
women’s tennis teams have spent
much of their spring seasons on
interstates and airplanes. This
weekend, they finally will get a
taste of home competition.
Both squads will take on
Oklahoma State on Saturday and
Oklahoma on Sunday. The
matches will be played at the
Cather-Pound tennis courts. On
both days, the men’s matches
start at 9 a.m., and women’s ac
tion gets under way at 2 p.m.
On the men’s side, Nebraska
is 6-11 overall and 1-1 in Big
Eight play. But Cornhusker
coach Kerry McDermott said his
team had played better than its
record indicated.
“Against some of the better
schools,” McDermott said,
“we’ve been able to keep the
match close.”
Oklahoma State is 9-7 over
all and 0-1 in conference action.
Oklahoma is 11-6 and 0-1. The
Husker men beat Missouri 7-0
and Southwest Missouri State 5
1 last weekend.
it was nice to put the shoe on
the other foot,” McDermott said.
Dinko Verzi, at No. 3 singles,
has a 7-4 record.
At No. 5 singles, Thomas
Wheat leads the team with a 9-3
mark. The top-seeded doubles
tandem of Adrian Maizey and
Verzi are 5-2 this year.
The Huskcr women, 4-12 and
1 -2 in the Big Eight, also blanked
Missouri 7-0 last weekend. The
return of sophomore Annie Yang
should help the Huskers, who
now can play with six singles
players and three doubles pairs.
NU wins big in doubleheader
By Trevor Parks
^senior Reporter ~
Angela Blackwood knew the minute someone said
something to her about her perfect game, it would go out
the window.
i TSE I Unfortunately for the Nebraska soft
I ball team, she was right.
“After we got the first out, (catcher)
Jenny (Smith) came out and almost said
something to me. When that happens,
that’s usually your downfall,”
Blackwood said. “I was trying not to
think about it, and I almost lost every
thing.”
i-:-1 Aitnougn Blackwood lost her per
feet game and no-hitter in the fifth and
BiacKwooa fmaj that was thc onjy suspense
left. The Cornhuskers trounced Missouri-Kansas City 23
0 in the second game of a doubleheader Thursday at the
Nebraska Softball Complex.
The 23 runs was a school record, breaking the record of
19 set earlier this season against Creighton.
Nebraska also won the first game 8-0 before a crowd of
250 fans. With the two wins, the Huskers improved to 27
12, and the Kangaroos fell to 3-15.
Blackwood, 11 -3 on the year, had no problem with the
first 13 hitters she faced, getting 10 to hit ground-ball outs,
two to fly out and she picked up one strikeout.
Two outs away from the perfect game, Blackwood fell
behind in the count 2-1 to UMKC catcher Carrie Campbell.
On her fourth pitch, home plate umpire Tom Van Dyke
called a ball on a pitch that barely missed the inside comer
of the plate.
Campbell walked, breaking up the perfect game on the
next pitch. With one out, the Kangaroos’ Jacy Schmidt
popped out to second. But Michelle Ackley broke up the
no-hitter with a single up the middle. Blackwood kept the
shutout intact as she got Kerry Hogan to ground out to third
to end the game.
Blackwood said she had been struggling for the past six
games, but Thursday was a big boost.
“The walk didn’t bother me as much as the hit because
after giving up the hit, it kind of set me back,” Blackwood
said. “Maybe 1 didn’t pitch a perfect game and maybe I
didn’t pitch a no-hitter, but I still kept the shutout, and
that’s pretty positive.”
In the second game, every Nebraska starter got a hit, 10
Huskers scored at least one run, and only Smith did not
have an RBI. Tobin Echo-Hawk, Ali Viola and Blackwood
al 1 hit home runs for the Huskers, who scored 18 runs in the
final two innings to turn the game into a rout.
Blackwood and Echo-Hawk each drove in five runs in
Travis Heying/DN
Nebraska second baseman Heather
Hanselmann handles a throw as UMKC’s
Megan Ott slides into second base during
the sixth inning of the Cornhuskers’ 8-0 win
Thursday. Nebraska won the second game
23-0.
the onslaught.
In the first game, the first three Huskers to step to the
plate in the first inning scored. Heather Hanselmann and
Gloria Von Rentzell scored on an Echo-Hawk double.
That double was the 45th of Echo-Hawk’s career,
breaking Jane Kremer’s school record of 44. The two RBI
tied Echo-Hawk with Kremcr for the most RBI in school
history at 113. ' v
Echo-Hawk later broke that record in the bottom of the
sixth inning, driving in Von Rentzell to make the score 5
0. After the two games, Echo-Hawk has 46 doubles and
119 RBI in her Nebraska career.
The Huskers travel to Texas A&M for a three-game series
this weekend.
Nebraska spirit squad
places teams in top 10
By Chris Raff
Staff Reporter
Alter a two-year hiatus from the
Collegiate Cheer and Dance National
Championships, the Nebraska spirit
squad placed both the cheerleaders
and the dance squad in the top 10.
The cheerleaders finished filth out
of 16 teams in the top division while
the dance squad ended up 10th out of
17 teams at Daytona Beach, Fla., April
5.
More than 100 schools competed
in the competition sponsored by the
National Cheerleaders Association.
NBC will televise the NCA Cheer
and Dance Championships on “NBC
Sports Saturday,” which starts at 12:30
p.m. Saturday.
Cheerleader coach Jamie Boling
said he was pleased with the cheer
leaders’ finish.
Nebraska placed higher than such
collegiate ehcerleading powers as
Florida State, North Carolina and de
fending champion Kansas. Louisville
captured this year’s title and Okla
homa finished second.
“I was very pleased by how we
performed,” Boling said. “I felt that
we showed a lot of class and determi
nation.”
Michelle Heitzler, a junior cheer
leader, agreed with Boling. She said
all of the hard work the cheerleaders
put in this season came down to a 2 1/
2-minutc routine.
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“In that time, we realized all the
work was worth it,” Heitzler said. “I’m
very satisfied with our finish, but we
could have done better.”
Despite finishing 10th, Trieia
Eldien, dance squad coach, said she
was also proud of the way her squad
performed. After not having a dance
squad for eight years, the dance squad
is in its fourth year.
“The competition was incredible,”
Eldien said. “However, I thought that
we deserved a better score.”
The dance competition was won by
Kansas.
Nebraska, which did not partici
pate in the championships last year or
the year before, already is looking
forward to its next shot.
Eldien said the dance squad would
strive for a top three finish at next
year’s competition.
Boling wanted the same from his
team, and he said this year’s experi
ence would lead to better things next
year.
“This is only the beginning,” Boling
said. “We want to set the standard for
collegiate cheerleading, and a national
championship definitely fits in there
as a main goal.”
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