Crouch learns from
first season at QB '
Freshman ‘sorry’for senior players
By Darken Ivy
Senior staff writer
SAN DIEGO - The 1998 season
wasn’t supposed to end this way for Eric
CroUch. Not in any way, shape or form.
He wasn’t supposed to be the start
ing quarterback. That was Bobby
Newcombe’s job. He wasn’t supposed
to have to start the second game of the
season, lose a critical tumble in a loss to
Texas or play the best game ofhis young
career in a 40-30 loss to Kansas State.
Crouch wasn’t supposed to watch
the Huskers lose four games for die first
time in 30 years. He wasn’t supposed to
be here, in the tunnel under Qualcomm
Stadium after the Holiday Bowl, mak
ing apologies.
But there he was, living out another
unexpected twist in an unexpected sea-,
son. Another lesson in the learning
curve for the graduate of Millard North.
“1 just want to say I’m sorry to the
seniors,” Crouch said. “This is not the
way I had planned it for them.”
Crouch’s play mirrored his perfor
mance this seasori, along with the
team’s play. It was solid one moment,
shaky die next. Crouch threw for 193
yards and two touchdowns, but threw
two interceptions and 16 incomple
tions.
But Crouch warmed up just before
halftime, hitting senior wingback
Shevin Wiggins on a 45-yard touch
down pass with 1:53 remaining to give
Nebraska a 10-9 lead.
Going into the halftime break,
Crouch said, he felt the Huskers had the
momentum and Were ready for the sec
ond half.
“We felt we had a good plan,”
Crouch said. “We came out in the sec
ond half with the attitude we were going
to win.”
But the offense managed just one
first down and 23 yards on offense in
the third quarter. Coach Frank Solich
didn’t blame the low productivity of die
offense on Crouch, though. He credited
the Wildcat defense.
“There are moments where you will
look flat,” Solich said, “because great
defenses are going to make you look
flat”
After falling behind 16-13 in the
fourth quarter, Crouch was intercepted
by Chris McAlister on the first play of
the ensuing drive. Luckily for NU,
Kenny Cheatham ran McAlister down
from behind and caused a fumble to
give NU the ball back.
Crouch took advantage of his sec
ond chance, driving the Huskers down
the field on an eight-play, 88-yard drive
which resulted in a 4-yard touchdown
reception by tight end Tracey Wistrom.
“When things looked the worst is
when he responded and made big
plays,” Solich said. “That’s the type of
quarterback he is.”
Arizona responded with a touch
down of its own. Then Crouch was
intercepted with 3:10 remaining. That
appeared to seal the game, but NU got
the ball back with 34 seconds and one
last chance.
On the first play, Crouch lofted a
perfectly thrown 40-yard pass to a
wide-open Cheatham at the Arizona 26
yard line, but the ball went off his fin
gertips.
That’s the life of a freshman quar
terback. As Crouch has done all year,
though, he looked for positives from the
Holiday Bowl loss so he can make sure
they don’t happen next year.
“(The game’s) definitely a disap
pointment,” Crouch said. “But there are
a lot of things I’ve learned. I’ve got three
years left A game like this definitely is
going to help me.”
NU Campus Recreation
Activities...
IM Sports Trivia Contest 1/14
IM Broomball Entries Due 1/14
Children's Swiml Lessons Begin 1/16
IM Basketball Entries Due 1/19
Free Skate Night at the Ice Box 1/17
Non-credit Classes Begin 1/25
OCR FITNESS <5 WELLNESS WEEK
January 19-22,1999
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Nee: Second-half letdown
costs NU in loss to Texas
By Darren Ivy
Senior staff writer
Trailing 76-72 with four minutes
and 32 seconds remaining, the
Nebraska men’s basketball team had
all the momen
tum on its side.
Then it was
gone.
Several
blown opportuni
ties, a 3 :18 scor
ing drought and a
couple of key
turnovers
doomed the
Cornhuskers as
Texas blew open the game in the last
five minutes en route to a 89-76 victo
ry in front of 8,143 fans at the Bob
Devaney Sports Center on Sunday.
The Huskers were ona 6-0 run and
had just made a steal. Then an NU
player threw a long outlet pass that was
intercepted by Kris Clack. Texas came
down, and DeJuan Vazquez was
fouled. The Huskers got another break
as Vazquez missed the front end of a
one-and-one free throw attempt.
But on the rebound the ball went
off Chad Johnson’s and Louis
Truscott’s hands before going out of
bounds. The Longhorns’ Gabe
Muoneke went on to make a layup on
that possession.
The Huskers (8-7 and 0-2 in the
Big 12 Conference) never got any clos
er as Texas (7-8 and 3-0) won its third
straight game.
“Three or four decisions late in the
game turned it,” said senior forward
Texas 89
Nebraska76
Andy Markowski, who scored eight
points and grabbed five rebounds. “We
had a couple of turnovers. We have to
recognize time and score. We have to
execute and get stops.”
The Huskers had little trouble exe
cuting offensively in the first half as
they jumped to a 45-41 lead.
Larry Florence scored 11 of his
team-high 19 points in the first half,
and Cookie Belcher added 12.
“We shoot 59 percent from the
floor and 78 percent from the line in the
first half,” Coach Danny Nee said. “We
can’t play much better offensively.”
Texas, meanwhile, shot 60 percent,
but UT Coach Rick Barnes was not
happy with the 15 turnovers, Vazquez
said.
“We settled down and decided to.
play our game,” Vazquez said. “It was a
pretty heated locker room at the half.
Coach lit a fire under us.”
The Longhorns got back in the
game before both teams settled in.
Texas led 55-54 with 13:06 remaining.
Then a series of plays gave Texas a
cushion it would never relinquish.
The Longhorns took advantage of
a questionable out-of-bounds call by
hitting a 3-pointer. Nee was still irate as
NU came back down the floor and the
Husker bench got a technical to give
the ball back to the Longhorns.. After
that turn of events, the score was 61-54.
The rest of the game, the Huskers
played catch up. But the 11-31 shoot
ing from the floor and 7-15 from the
«
If we could have,
played two halves,
we would have been
all right."
Danny Nee
NU coach
line in the second half kept NU from
getting over the hump.
“If we could have played two
halves, we would have been all right,”
Nee said. “We had blocks of time
where we didn’t play well. We opened
chances for Texas.
“You need to play 40 minutes to
win in the Big 12,” Nee said. “We prob
ably played 25 to 30 minutes of good
basketball, if that much. Down the
stretch, there was nothing there to get
us back in the game.”
Texas also made it difficult to
come back as it made 19-23 free
throws.
“They did what they had to late in
the game, and we didn’t,” Markowski
said. “That sums it up.”
Nebraska has now lost four of its
last six games. Pressure to win has
been mounting. But Markowski said
it’s unfair.
“We’re close,” Markowski said.
“People are riding us that we’re terri
ble. I don’t think we’re terrible. We’re
just not doing the little things. We
have to find ways late in the game to
win.”
Husker women fall to Longhorns
Nebraska goes 5-2 over the holidays, 2-1 in Big 12
By Christopher Heine
Staff writer
The Nebraska women’s basketball
team didn’t take much of a holiday
break.
Coach Paul Sanderford’s team went
5-2 over the course of the last month
with, two big conference wins at home
against Missouri (83-67) on Jan. 3 and
Colorado (90-49) on Wednesday.
However, the Comhuskers lost their
most recent contest 80-75 on the road,
against Texas on Saturday.
NU was scorched by a 25-point per
formance by Longhorn forward
Edwina Brown.
Brown, a preseason All-Big 12
pick, sank six of eight crucial free
throws in the final two minutes and 26
seconds.
The game was a ffee-throw shoot
ing, see-saw affair with the lead chang
ing hands 11 times throughout the con
test.
Texas sank 23 of 32 from the chari
ty stripe while NU shot an even more
impressive 20 of 27 free throws.
However, the most telling statistic
may have been the Huskers’ lack of
steals.
Nebraska, led by the nation’s lead
ing steal-maker in guard Nicole Rubik,
has averaged 14.2 takeaways a game.
The Longhorns held NU to only four
steals.
NU is currently 2-1 in Big 12 con
ference play.
In other games, the Huskers also
defeated Montana on Dec. 12 and
North Texas on Dec. 20 at the Bob
Devaney Sports Center.
NU also beat Kent 78-72 on Dec.
29 in the first round of the Seelbach*
Tournament in Louisville, Ky. The
Huskers lost the championship contest
to Louisville 77-66, snapping
Nebraska’s seven-game winning
streak.
Other noteworthy news from the
break includes Sanderford gaining
career win No. 400 in a victory over
Missouri at home.
Snyder wins at 157 in Great Plains
■ Five Huskers make the
tourney finals one week
before the National Duals.
ByLisaVonnahme
Staff writer
In preparation for National Duals,
the biggest regular-season wrestling
tournament of the year, the Nebraska
wrestling team played host to its own
Great Plains Open on Saturday.
While NU Coach Tim Neumann
and the Comhusker grapplers are pri
marily focused on the National Duals
this weekend in Iowa City, Iowa, the
Nebraska wrestling team still man
aged to send five of its wrestlers to the
finals of the meet held on the Bob
Devaney Sports Center track.
Redshirt freshman Bryan Snyder
came away as the only NU champion,
earning the title at 157 pounds with a
14-10 decision over fellow NU
wrestler Billy Gabel. The teammates
were able to meet in the finals because
of the open tournament format, in
which any wrestler can compete and
no team scores were kept.
“It felt different wrestling Billy in
the finals,” Snyder said. “I don’t really
.like to wrestle guys on my team in
competition. We know each other’s
styles pretty well.”
Huskers Jose DeAnda (141
pounds), Charles McTorry (174
pounds) and Brad Vering (184
pounds) also advanced to the finals.
All three came up short of titles, and
the defeat at 141 handed DeAnda his
first loss of the season.
DeAnda fell to James Torres of
Indiana 13-10. At the end of the sec
ond period, DeAnda trailed 8-2 but
was able to bounce back, tying the
score at 10 after Torres received a
stalling call with 28 seconds remain
ing in the match. Torres scored an
escape and earned a takedown as time
ran out, giving Torres the 3-point vic
tory.
“Jose did a great job,” Neumann
said. “He came back from a big
deficit. A loss was probably going to
come his way sometime this season, so
maybe it’s good to just get it out of the
way now.”
At 174, McTorry suffered an 18-2
technical fall against eventual
Outstanding Wrestler of the meet,
Oklahoma’s Byron Tucker.
Vering fell to Brandon Eggum of
Minnesota 3-2 at 184.
The No. 12 Huskers faced strong
competition at the meet with wrestlers
from No. 2 Minnesota and No. 6
Oklahoma. Wrestlers from Indiana,
Marquette, Missouri, St. Cloud State
and Wyoming also competed.
“The competition turned out to be
pretty good,” Neumann said. “We’ve
been training through this meet and
focusing on National Duals, so I think
we did all right today.”
Former NU grappler, three-time
All-American Ryan Tobin, wrestled
unattached in the tournament, his first
competition since the NCAA meet in
March. Tobin made his way to the
semifinals in the heavyweight division
but fell to eventual heavyweight cham
pion Trent Hynek 8-4.
