Shannon Heffelfinger
Young Husker
shows signs of
future stardom
Mandy Monson walked into
the conference room at the NU
Coliseum Tuesday afternoon and
nervously glanced at the TV cam
eras and tape recorders resting in
front of her.
“Oh wow, I don’t know where
to go,” she said. “Am I supposed to
sit here?”
The sophomore outside hitter
on the Nebraska volleyball team
then attempted to clip two minia
ture microphones to her white T
shirt. Monson failed on the first
attempt, her fingers clumsily fas
tening the clips until finally the
microphones sat securely in place.
A bewildered Monson smiled
sheepishly, her freckled cheeks
turning slightly red.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m not real
ly used to this.”
All eyes in the room focused on
Monson, who before this weekend,
was nothing more than a curiosity
on the surface; a face that appeared
in the media guide, a body that
sometimes earned spot duty on the
court.
A small-town girl from a Class
D-2 school who was just happy to
be here. A wide-eyed freshman
who started two matches in 1996
only because the regular starter
was struck with the flu. A hard
working team member who spent
this summer in Lincoln, lifting
weights and practicing daily.
And now: A mature, stronger
player who, when finally given the
chance, revealed once and for all a
clue to what lies beneath the sur
face. Earning the starting role in
NU’s first three matches last week
end, Monson pounded 25 kills, hit
ting over .500 during the first two
matches. Monson swung at the hall
64 times - thiid most on the team,
and posted 31 digs.
The place was the Suntrust
Invitational in Gainesville, Fla.
The audience was NU coach Terry
Pettit and Monson’s teammates.
And the message was more than
clear. Monson is a curiosity no
longer.
Drawing from the improve
merits she made and the confi
dence they gave her, the former
bench-warmer transformed herself
into a weapon in all aspects of the
game. The distance from one to the
other proved great, and the journey
wasn’t without struggles.
“Things really wore on me the
beginning of my freshman year,
and it was frustrating sometimes,”
Monson said. “When I first got
here, I had to tell myself, ‘I’m real
ly here and this is really happen
ing.’ But then I realized that I
deserved to be here.”
The small-town girl has found
a big-time role with the Huskers.
And two revealing, early-sea
son days of competition in Florida
proved one thing: The surface has
barely been scratched.
| Heffelfinger is a sophomore
news-editorial major and a Drily
Nebraskan assignment reporter.
----— . ■ ......"Ill—..
Matt Mtt j.f.r/DN
KRISTEN GAY (right) fights for control of the ball with a Southern California opponent Sunday in Nebraska’s 2-1
victory over the Women of hoy at the Abbott Sports Complex. Nebraska won its season opener Friday 4-1 over
DePaul before facing USC.
Huskers
kick off
a winner
■ Soccer team opens with
victories over DePaul and
use.
By Jay Saunders
Assignment Reporter
Two wins in a weekend might
seem to be business as usual for the
Nebraska soccer team, but neither
the coach nor the players were com
pletely satisfied with the perfor
mance.
NU’s 4-1 win Friday night over
DePaul, followed by a 2-1 win over
Southern California on Sunday gave
the Comhuskers a 2-0 start to the sea
son. With the wins, the Huskers
extended their home winning streak
to 17 games and won their 21st con
secutive regular-season contest. )
“We played well in spurts but not
for 90 minutes,” Nebraska coach
John Walker said. “There are some
things we need to get ironed out early
in the season.”
The Huskers had little problem
against DePaul.
NU goalkeeper Rebecca
Hornbacher did not face a shot the
entire time she played', while
Nebraska’s offense came from an
unexpected place - senior co-captain
Tanya Franck. Franck didn’t score a
goal last season, but put two shots in
the net to give NU all the scoring it
needed.
Although the Husker defense
kept DePaul out of the Nebraska half
of the field for most of the game, the
offense did not connect on scoring
opportunities. Nebraska had a 19-1
advantage over DePaul in shots on
goal. ' ^
“We created a lot of chances,”
Please see SOCCER on 13
NU drops marathon to Florida
By Shannon Heffelftnger
Assignment Reporter
The time for the Nebraska volley
ball team to worry has not yet arrived.
An early-season road loss to a top
five team doesn’t represent cause for
major alarm, Terry Pettit said Tuesday,
and the Comhusker coach expressed a
minimal amount of concern over his
team’s two-hour, 57-minute, five-game
loss to No. 4 Florida at the Suntrust
Invitational Sunday in Gainesville, Fla.
Before falling to the Gators 13-15,15
12,15-11,7-15,15-7, the Huskers (2-1)
posted quick three-game victories over
Loyola (Chicago) and Miami (Ohio) on
Saturday.
“The Florida match was the first
time in the last three or four years that
we were playing a top-three or four
team on their court,” Pettit said. “You
don’t play a top-three or four team on
their court and win unless you just play
absolutely great volleyball. And the
chances of playing great volleyball in
the last weekend in August are problem
atical.”
Third-ranked Nebraska barely fell
short of securing a victory over the
Gators, who were led by Nina Foster’s
25 kills. NU jumped to a quick start and
stole the first game from Florida 15-13.
But die Gators (3-0) batded back during
the second game, using a 10-2 run to
squelch the Huskers’ charge in what
Pettit said was the defining moment of
the match.
“I had the feeling we’d break the
match open if we could go ahead 2-0,”
Pettit said. “But we couldn’t quite get it
done. 1 remember extolling the players
that now was the time to close it out and
shut the door, but we didn’t do it and
ultimately that cost us the match.”
Offensive mediocrity plagued
Nebraska. No player posted a hitting
percentage higher than .200, while col
lectively Nebraska hit. 106, its lowest
output since hitting .010 against Texas
in 1993.
Right-side hitter Lisa Reitsma led
NUwith 19 kills but faltered nine times.
Outside hitters Mandy Monson and
Jaime Krondak and middle blocker
Megan Korver each recorded more than
10 kills but committed 28 errors. The
Comhuskers posted 47 errors as a team.
“In die past, we’ve kind of taken our
offense for granted,” Pettit said. “We’ve
always been more focused and spend
more time in practices on defending an
opponent. I didn’t think we’d be shut
down as much as we were offensively
by Florida. I thought our middle attack
ers would be much more successful,
and we were not. We were out of sync.
We just were not very effective.”
Pettit credited the Huskers’ low
offensive production to their average
passing. Nebraska’s passes often failed
to reach setter Fiona Nepo’s target near
the net With most passes barely nearing
the 10-foot line, it became difficult for
Nepo to assist the middle blockers,
leaving little variance in NU’s offense.
“It would be like running a football
offense and saying we’re going to elim
inate the pitch and wje’re going to elimi
nate a pass to the tiglitend,” Pettit said.
“We were only able to set the outside
hitters. That makes it easy for the other
team to play defense.”
Florida blocked NU 26 times and
posted 101 digs. The Gators carried out
a smart game plan by pounding the ball
at Reitsma, limiting ho- ability to attack. ,
Pettit said he would like to see
Reitsma become more involved in the
later part of close matches. Three prob
able close matches await Nebraska this
weekend when the Huskers play host to
the First Bank Invite at the NU
Coliseum. Seventh-ranked Pacific, No.
25 Arkansas, and No. 29 George Mason
will challenge the Huskers, who have
not lost a match in the tournament since
1992 and have won 33 straight home
matches.
Monson said the weekend loss
should help the Huskers prepare for the
rough schedule.
“We definitely expected to win,”
Monson said. “We know we have to go
out every point and work very hard. It
was our third match. We’re still at the
beginning of the year, and if you do
drop a match, if you can learn from it
and come back die next week, you’ll be
set”
VJ