Cain wins all-around
Kimura saves NU
with grand slam
■ The former Nebraska native comes
back to haunt the Huskers, leading No. 4 .
Michigan to the regional title.
By Darren Ivy
Senior staff writer
Grand Island native Sarah Cain made her homecoming
to Lincoln a memorable one as she won the all-around title
and helped fourth-ranked Michigan win the NCAA
Region 3 Gymnastics Championships on Saturday at the
Bob Devaney Sports Center.
Cain, a five-time All-American, scored a 9.9 on the
vault, uneven bars and floor exercise and a 9.825 on the
balance beam en route to scoring a 39.525.
As Cain’s name was announced and she went to receive
her all-around award, many of the Devaney Center fans
gave her a standing ovation.
“It was a lot of fun,” said Cain with a giggle. “It was
nice to have friends and family have a chance to watch me
compete.”
Cain wasn’t the only Wolverine who performed well.
Her teammate, Lisa Simes, finished tied for second in the
all-around with a 39.375.
The Wolverines, who won their seventh Big 10
Conference championship in the last eight years March 27,
competed in the same order at the regionals as at the Big 10
meet, which helped the team, Coach Bev Plocki said.
It also meant Michigan started on its weakest event, the
balance beam. The Wolverines scored a 49,025 on the
beam, led by Shannon McKenzie’s 9.85.
“There was a big sigh of relief when we finished beam
and didn’t have to count any falls,” Plocki said. “I think it
relaxed the team because we knew we could hit the next
three events without question. It’s a nice feeling to know
you have it behind you.”
The Wolverines followed up the beam performance
with a 49.150 on the floor exercise. Cain’s 9.9 was the
1 Oth-straight time she had scored a 9.9 or higher. Last year,
Cain finished fourth at the NCAA Championships in that
event
After the floor exercise, Michigan scored a 49.275
vault score to take a 147.45 to 146.975 lead over second
place Nebraska going into the final rotation of the meet.
But Plocki kept the score a secret.
“I didn’t tell them we had the lead,” Plocki said. “I don’t
discuss with them between rotations where we are in rela
tionship to other teams. It’s not something we can control.
I just told them we need to go out and hit our routines like
we did at Big 10s and swing tight.”
Michigan gymnasts nailed all their routines. Nikki
Peters led the way with a 9.925 and Cain had a 9.90 as the
two gymnasts finished first and second in the event.
Plocki was proud of how her team hung on during the
last rotation to win the championship.
Women gymnasts
qualify for NCAAs
with solid regional
WOMEN from page 9_
back and compete the way she did says a lot about her.”
Brink provided her own drama, starting the
evening by following Oxford’s second-place-winning
9.9 vault with a thunderous 9.95 vault of her own,
breaking the school record she and Oxford previously
held.
She then went to the bars, where she also had set
the school record one month ago against Penn State,
and had the crowd stunned when she lost hold of them.
She had little time to recover from the fall, being the
first competitor in NU’s next event, the beam.
“I just had to leave the bars behind,” Brink said.
“Obviously that’s not what I wanted to do. But beam
was a new event and I just had to set a new mind frame
and step up.”
She did, and pulled out a 9.75 on her way to a sixth
place all-around finish.
Also providing dramatics was junior Nicole
Wilkinson, who followed up her third-place-winning
bars routine (9.85) with a career high 9.9 to capture the
beam title.
“Ever since Big 12s I wanted to do better,”
Wilkinson said. “Courtney (Brown) and I had a little
chat and calmed each other down before the beam.”
Brown, the senior specialist who had won 13 event
titles between the vault, beam and floor this year, was
unable to win Saturday, but was able to cap off the
beam comeback with a third-place-winning 9.875. But
in a microcosm of the team’s performance, Brown had
to scrape her way back from nearly falling.
“What a performance our girls had to come back,”
Kendig said. “They had a chance to start second
guessing themselves. They didn’t pitch up any tents
after the bars.
“But this has been a fighting team all year.”
“They came out here and competed in very tough com
petition against a very good team in Nebraska and held
their own,” Plocki said. “We knew Nebraska was a strong
team. Coming in I told the girls that these teams are so
closely matched that you can’t count falls and expect to
win or even progress.
“I believe we are peaking when we need to be peaking.
We know we can hit our routines; now we just have to con
centrate on sticking every landing.”
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ByAdamKunker
Senior staff writer
For whatever reasons, the winds
over Buck Beltzer Field on Sunday
afternoon smiled on Nebraska’s Danny
Kimura.
Or maybe he just fooled them.
Once again, Kimura, who already
had one game-winning RBI to his cred
it for the week, was in the right place at
the right time. He gave the 28tb-ranked
Comhusker baseball squad a 6-2 win
over No. 23 Oklahoma State with a
grand slam home run in what both he
and NU Coach Dave Van Horn called
the biggest game of the year to this
point
“This is probably the biggest win of
the season,” Kimura said. “It’s big; it
gets us rolling again.”
Kimura’s homer was his fourth of
the season and after his game-winning
sacrifice fly in a 5-4 Husker win over
Creighton, his second big at bat of the
week.
With Sunday’s win, NU maintains
sole possession of fifth place in the Big
12 Conference standings - two games
ahead of OSU after taking two of three
from the Cowboys over the weekend.
Xfter losing Friday’s game to
Oklahoma State 10-2, Van Horn said
the comeback over the next two contests
set a renewed pace for the Huskers as
they move into the second half of the
Big 12 season.
NU beat the Cowboys 15-7 on
Saturday, getting a win from Shane
Komine(6-l).
“It just showed me a lot about the
character of our team and the make-up
of our players to basically have it put on
them Friday night and bounce back to
win the series,” Van Horn said
“They could have rolled over mid
said, ‘Hey, we just can’t play with these
guys.’ But they didn’t let that happen,
they got the win on Saturday and it all
Nebraska 6
Oklahoma State 2
carried over into today.”
On Sunday, in the eighth inning
with the game knotted at 2-2 and heavy
winds continuing to wreak havoc on
sky-bound hits, Kimura stepped to the
plate against Cowboy reliever Jeremy
Krismer with die bases loaded
Earlier in the game, a towering fly
from the bat of OSU’s Billy Gasparino,
which would have been a home run on
any other day, was easily caught just in
front of the left field fence.
After that, Kimura said, he didn’t
think there was a chance of anything
leaving the yard. To his own delight, he
was wrong.
Kimura took an 0-1 Krismer fast
ball and belted it into a suddenly opened
corridor in the wind on a direct line. The
ball cleared the fence and Kimura, pre
viously 0-for-3 on the day, was now 1
for-4 with another game winner.
“I thought it was pretty much
impossible after Gasparino hit his,”
Kimura said. “I went up looking for a
pitch I could drive, at least put into the
gap, and score a run. Well, I found a
fastball and I hit it”
Nebraska, with the series win, now
moves to 23-10 for the season with a 10
5 record in the Big 12. OSU falls to 25
10 and 8-7.
Chad Wiles notched his first victory
of the season in relief of Jay Sirianni,
who pitched 6 2/3 innings, giving up
two runs and seven hits.
Wiles retired all seven batters he
faced, striking out two; and with a little
help from Kimura, kept the game well
out of OSU’s reach and moved the
Huskers closer to their goal of making
the regional tournament
.“This is big,” Kimura said. “It gets
us rolling again. We started swinging
the bats well as a team and we’re back
on a winning streak.”
Defense rules again
in football scrimmage
By Jay Saunders
Staff writer
A gusty wind blew from south to
north at Memorial Stadium for the
Nebraska football team’s second scrim
mage of die spring Saturday.
Because of that wind, the passing
game suffered, but that suited the coach
ing staff just fine.
Going into this scrimmage, the
coaches wanted to work on the running
game. Mission accomplished.
Of the 124 plays the offense ran
Saturday, 106 were on the ground. But
the Cornhuskers averaged just over
three yardsper carry.
“There wasn’t much consistency on
the offensive side of the football,” NU
Coach Frank Solich said. “I would like
to think we are farther along than we
showed.”
What the offense showed was an
inability to get the ball into the end zone.
Reserve I-back James Kelly scored the
only touchdown late in the scrimmage
against the scout defense.
The only other scoring was a pair of
21-yard field goals by Josh Brown and
Dan Hadenfeldt.
Freshman Chris Butler led all rush
ers with 62 yards on 11 carries.
Freshman quarterback Sam Gutz had
54 yards on 13 carries.
“Our running game is coming,”
Solich said. “We are doing some things
well in the power game. I think the
offensive line is coming off the ball bet
ter than what we did last year.”
Behind that offensive line were four
quarterbacks trying to move the ball.
No. 1 quarterback Eric Crouch contin
ued to wear a green jersey in practice,
and Solich said he will probably wear it
for the spring game.
Sophomore Jay Runty led the
Huskers in passing, completing two of
four passes for 22 yards. Runty was also
the only quarterback not to get sacked
“(Jeff) Perino and Runty are battling
for position behind Eric right now,”
Solich said. “We wanted to give them
some chances.”
No new injuries came out of
Saturday’s two-hour scrimmage.
Quarterback Bobby Newcombe contin
ues to sit out of practice with a knee
injury.
I-Back DeAngelo Evans, who prac
ticed some earlier in the week, did not
scrimmage Saturday.
Sophomore fullback Willie Miller
did scrimmage for the first time this
spring. Miller, who is recovering from
an abdominal injury, said his timing was
off a little.
“I felt a little rusty,” Miller said. “It
is good to be back out there though.”
The story of the scrimmage was
once again the defense. The offense was
not able to sustain many drives.
Husker quarterbacks were sacked
nine times. Leading the way for the
defense was freshman Demoine
Adams, who had two sacks. Freshman
Gabe Fries grabbed his second inter
ception of the spring.
“We knew they had to keep the ball
on the ground and we had to buckle
down,” sophomore Mike linebacker
Carlos Polk said. “We are getting
intense and we are ready to play.”
Polk and the rest of the Huskers will
practice twice this week. Saturday will
be the annual Red/White spring game,
which is set for 12:30 p.m. at Memorial
Stadium.