Nebraska golfers benefit
for stiffer foes in tourneys
BySamMcKewon
Senior editor
Life among the nation’s elite has
been treating the Nebraska men’s golf
team pretty well.
NU, which may be fielding the best
team in school history, has benefited
from invitations to higher-profile tour
naments because of the strong lineup.
And it’s shown in the rankings. The
most recent Mastercard collegiate Top
60 has the Comhuskers at 11th, their
highest ranking ever. NU and
Northwestern are the only northern
teams anywhere near the top 10.
Recently, Nebraska is coming off a
third place fmish at the Stevinson
Ranch Invitational in Stevinson, Calif.,
where Huskers were favored to win,
but were behind champion Kansas and
No. 24 Fresno State.
NU Coach Larry Romjue said third
place was disappointing as NU was the
top-ranked team there; but expecting to
win is a good problem to have.
“It’s always nice when you can
have a team that can compete with the
stronger teams,” Romjue said. “There’s
still seven or eight teams out there who
won’t play you, though. They basically
play each other. It’s OK for them to lose
to each other, but not OK for them to
lose to a team like Nebraska.”
Romjue includes Oklahoma State
and Texas in that group of the very
elite. But the Cowboys and the
Longhorns won’t be able to avoid NU
at the Big 12 Championships, where
Romjue fully expects to contend for
the conference championships.
A solid lineup allows him to think
so. Seasoned veterans Steve Friesen,
Jaime Rogers, Josh Madden and Scott
Gutchewski have been around for two
years together and form a nucleus
among the best in the country.
“I think, with the four of us, we
actually know that we can beat good
teams now,” Rogers said. “We always
knew the talent was there; it was just a
matter of being consistent.”
Rogers said the Huskers are peak
ing at the right time. Friesen’s been
strong all year, Madden just recently
won a tournament and Rogers, him
self, feels his game is coming around.
“It always is like that,” Rogers said.
“One guys gets playing well, and we all
start feeling that pressure. We feed off
that success.”
Romjue said a warm spring has
helped to get the Huskers good prac
tice time. It’s helped NU in its continu
ing quest to find a No. 5 golfer, a spot
where Seth Porter and Ryan Nietfeldt
have alternated at during the season
and freshman Dean Best might get a
shot at before the season’s over.
“We’re still looking for the No. 5
guy,’”Romjue said.
Come listen to NU Softball Coach Rhonda Revelle this
Thursday at 6:30 pm in the Nebraska Union. Room to be
posted. Also, come learn about getting priority seating for
Husker football season tickets. Anyone planning on getting
student football tickets is strongly encouraged to attend.
For more information contact the Athletic Marketing Office
at 472-9839 or huskerfury@huskers.unl.edu.
HuskerFury is open to every full-time student, except student-athletes.
Huskers ready for NCAAs
By Brandon Schulte
Staffwriter
Nine men from the Nebraska swim
ming and diving team will head to
Indianapolis this weekend to compete at
the NCAA national championship
meet.
After a slow start at the Big 12
championships three weeks ago, Coach
Cal Bentz says a good start is key.
“We’re going to place a lot of
emphasis on doing well the first session
of die first day,” Bentz said. “Once we
get halfway through the meet we’re pret
ty much tied to the range that we’ll score
in. We want to get locked into the high
est possible group we can and then keep
trying to climb the ladder from there.”
In a sport where numbers are so
important, diving is one area in which
the Huskers have a leg-up on the com
petition by virtue of qualifying two ath
letes.
Senior diver Danny Bergman will
have to overcome a slight back injury to
improve on his seventh-place finish in
the one-meter and ninth place finish in
me mree-meter last year.
Teammate Eric Cook, completely
healthy for the first time in two years,
makes his first appearance at hie meet
At the Zone Diving meet Cook defeat
ed Bergman in both hie one- and three
meter springboard competitions.
“Eric has made substantial improve
ment this year,” Diving Coach Jim
Hocking said. “A lot of people don’t
know who he is, so he will be fun to
watch.”
Australian Adam Pine is shooting to
become the first male Nebraska swim
mer to ever win an individual event at
the NCAAs, after placing second in the
100-yard butterfly last year as a sopho
more. So far this season his time of
46.71 ranks second nationally.
Pine feels good about his chances to
be the first individual winner in NU his
tory.
“Every time I go to a major meet, I
seem to do better than I have before,”
Pine said. “I feel that I’m better than I
was this time last year. It’s hard to put in
seconds, but I’m better prepared and
more focused for this meet than I ever
have been before.
ii—
A lot of people don’t
know who he is, so he
will be fun to watch.”
Jim Hocking
NU coach on Eric Cook
Fellow Australian, freshman
Anthony Rogis, also has his eyes on a
first-place finish. At the conference
meet, he shattered team and Big 12
records, on his way to recording the top
mark in the 200-yard freestyle national
ly this year. He was rewarded by being
seeded first in the event at the champi
onships.
Cook for one is thinking about his
opportunities of the present and not of
the future.
“I’m going to be living for the
moment right then and there,” Cook
said. “Who knows what next year has to
bring, I might make it back, and I might
not.”
Pipir Tnwwi w/HN
NU JUNIOR OUTFIELDER ADAM SHABALA slides into home
base and is tagged out in the fourth inning. The Huskers
went on to beat UN015-2.
Huskers pound
UNO with hitting
BASEBALL from page 9
more fun than practicing.”
For the game, NU had only three more hits than the
Mavericks, but UNO committed four errors to
Nebraska’s zero.
Freshman right-hander R.D. Spiehs, who had
allowed 13 eafned runs through 11 2/3 innings pitched
for a 10.03 earned run average, picked up his first win of
the season tossing 2 1/3 scoreless innings. He gave up
four hits and struck out one in his stint on the mound for
NU.
“I just threw strikes for two innings and let my team
come back,” said Spiehs, who entered in the fourth.
“These games let us fine-tune some things. Sotae guys
on the pitching staff that don’t have innings - it lets them
get some work. It’s just an all-around good situation to
get ready for this weekend.”
With starters Shane Komine and Steve Hale, who had
combined for 7-2 record this season, out with injuries this
weekend, Van Horn said, the Huskers will have to rely on
less experienced pitchers when they play host to Texas, a
team that has already swept the defending national cham
pion Southern California earlier this season.
But that doesn’t concern Spiehs.
“We’re rolling right now,” he said. “I know the confi
dence on this team is as high as it’s been.”
The 30th-ranked Huskers (5-1 in the Big 12
Conference) will face the Longhorns (21-8 overall and 8
1 in the Big 12) at 7 p.m. on Friday, 2 p.m. on Saturday
and 1 p.m. on Sunday at Buck Beltzer Field.
Third tutor admits wrongdoing
in Minnesota basketball scandal
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - A third
tutor says she wrote a paper for a for
mer University of Minnesota men’s
basketball player.
Graduate student Alexandra
Goulding said when she told Coach
Clem Haskins she wouldn’t do it
again, Haskins responded that the
player, Courtney James, “needed a lot
of help,” the Saint Paul Pioneer Press
reported Wednesday.
The next day, Goulding said, team
academic counselor Alonzo Newby
told her she would not be offered a
contract to continue working as an
athletic department tutor.
Goulding, a doctoral candidate in
sociology, said Newby had watched
her write the paper on her first day as
a tutor in 1995.
Goulding said she discovered that
James’ paper about his goals in
school was due the next day, and that
he was not proficient in typing or
putting his thoughts on paper. She
said she sat down at the computer and
began typing the paper with James
beside her.
“From yes and no statements
from him, I created the sentences,”
she said.
Goulding said she then told
Newby that “I cannot and will not
write his papers. I said you will have
to get him (James) some remedial
tutoring.”
Goulding said she later repeated
these concerns to Haskins.
However, Goulding said she does
not believe Haskins witnessed her
writing the paper for James.
Ron Rosenbaum, attorney for
Newby, said he needs to investigate
the latest allegations.
Ron Zamansky, who represents
Haskins, said the coach stands by his
earlier statement denying wrongdo
ing.
This week, two law firms hired by
the university began investigating
earlier allegations by two former
tutors.
Two weeks ago, Jan Gangelhoff, a
one-time tutor and former academic
counseling unit office manager, said
she completed 400 pieces of course
ware for 20 players from 1993 to
1998.
She furnished the Pioneer Press
with computer files containing more
than 225 examples of coursework for
19 players that she says she wrote and
players turned in.
Gangelhoff’s sister, Jeanne Payer,
also said she did coursework for play
ers during the 1997-98 school year.
Point guards
could be key
to national title
FINAL FOUR from page 9
history. He averaged 17.1 points
and 4.3 assists per game this season.
“I have known all along that
Scoonie was a premier player,”
O’Brien said. “He is a better player
now than he was in his two years at
BC. He matured and became
stronger during the year that he sat
out.”
The point guards, while a big
part of the battle, won’t have the
entire final say. Premier players typ
ically have premier games when it
counts.
For that measure, Duke’s Brand
or Langdon, Connecticut’s Richard
Hamilton, or the Buckeyes’
Michael Redd might be the differ
ence.
But even if they dominate the
scoring, they’ll need a point guard
to get the ball to them. And floor
general in a Final Four is about as
pressurized as it gets.
Or as Duke Coach Mike
Krzyzewski said: “It’s a bigger
spotlight now. And it keeps getting
bigger.”