Husker women
By John Gaskins
Staff writer
It was drilled into his gymnasts’
heads all season like a broken record
It was probably the most repeated
quote in the sports section of Omaha
and Lincoln newspapers this spring.
But Friday night’s Nebraska
women’s gymnastics team’s perfor
mance was a perfect example of why
Head Coach Dan Kendig uttered the
phrase “we must hit our routines” so
many times.
The Huskers followed up a success
ful Thursday night performance that
qualified them for Friday night’s NCAA
Super Six Finals in Salt Lake City with
a disappointing 194.800 score in which
they had to count three falls.
The performance, NU’s worst since
a Feb. 22 loss to Washington and
Arizona, netted them sixth place.
“We dug a hole on every event,”
Kendig said “It’s really hard to compete
when you fall on every event”
The heavily favored Georgia Gym
Dogs won their second consecutive
national title, their fifth in school histo
ry, ousting Michigan 196.850-196.550.
Alabama finished third at 195.950.
The Huskers got the fall bug in then
first event, the uneven bars.
Surprisingly, two of their best gymnasts,
junior Nicole Wilkinson and junior All
American Heather Brink, fell during
their routines.
It was the second straight time
Brink, who shares the school record in
the event, fell, repeating her Regional
Championship slip from two weeks
ago. The team scored a sub-par 48.350
to start the competition, not exactly the
way Kendig envisioned starting the run
for Nebraska’s first national champi
onship.
“We started with a mistake on bars
and that put a lot more pressure on die
beam team,” Kendig said
The Huskers moved to beam, their
top-scoring event throughout the regu
lar season, and again took a fall. It once
again came from Wilkinson, one of then
best beam performers over the last two
seasons.
“It’s the most mentally painful event
because it’s so easy to think about not
falling instead of your routine,”
Assistant Coach Rhonda Faehn
Tetreault said earlier this season.
“And it really gets tough when the
person in front of you falls. It gets to be
a real snowball effect”
Nebraska took a well-needed bye in
the third rotation before moving to floor
exercise, where five solid routines gave
diem a 48.975 score.
It finished up on the vault, where
Brink recovered with her own school
record tying 9.95, tying her for the
event’s title with Georgia’s Karin
Lichey. The team finished off a night
where they improved after each event,
with a 49.0.
Despite the shaky performance,
Kendig said his team had nothing to
hang their heads about in qualifying for
their second Super Six in three seasons.
“I’m really proud of this team and
they had an incredible year,” Kendig
said “I hated to see the seniors end their
collegiate careers this way.”
But two of NU’s five departing
seniors, Courtney Brown and Misty
Oxford, earned All-American honors.
Oxford was named to first team on the
floor exercise and second team in the
all-around, while Brown earned second
team honors on the vault, floor and
beam.
Meanwhile, Brink became the first
NU women’s gymnast to earn All
America honors in three consecutive
years with first team honors on the
vault, floor and all-around
Brink and Oxford qualified for
Saturday’s individual event finals. Brink
captured fourth on the floor exercise
with a 9.85 score and 11* on the vault,
while Oxford took 11th on the floor.
But Kendig took the team’s top
honor of the weekend, accepting the
national coach of the year award at die
NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Awards
banquet Saturday. It was the first time
he had won die award
Kendig, who has never lost a regu
lar-season home meet at the Devaney
Center (25-0) or a Big 8/Big 12
Championship (six for six), has com
piled a 98-21 record in six seasons at
NU and won his 200th career victory in
16 years of coaching earlier this season.
Lavy, Ingram
put on strong
showing
By JoshCamenzind
Staffwriter
Nebraska had a strong showing
in the jumping events at the Penn
Relays this past weekend.
Dalhia Ingram came away with a
third-place finish in die long jump on
Thursday with a mark of 20-6 inches.
She recorded the NCAA provisional
qualifying mark on her first jump and
led through five rounds before being
overtaken by Pittsburgh’s Trecia
Smith on her final jump (20-8).
Ingram also finished with a
fourth-place finish Friday. Ingram
jumped 42-2, also an NCAA provi
sional mark.
High jumper Shane Lavy contin
ued NU’s success with a third-place
finish and provisional mark of 7-3.
He finished behind Mark Boswell of
Texas, who cleared 7-4Vi
Sheldon Hutchinson rounded out
the Husker competition on Saturday
with a fifth-place finish in the triple
jump. Hutchinson leaped 50-10% to
assure that all three Huskers finished
in the top five of every competition.
While most of the team was in
B YU for the Clarence Robinson
Invitational, the rest competed in
Kansas City, Mo., at the UMKC
Invite.
The 1,500-meter run proved to be
very successful for the women as
they posted three of the top five times
in die event. Jeannette Zimmer won
the run with a time of4:36.87. Amy
Wiseman finished third and clocked
in at 4:40.78.
A time of 10:21.46 gained a
fourth-place finish for Melinda
Mohr in the 3,000-meter run. Deb
Osteen ran a 10:27.16 to gain eighth
. place in the same event.
Rachel Jones finished second
and third in the triple and long jumps,
respectively. Jones jumped 35-9*/2 in
the triple jump and 18-1 in the long
jump for her marks. Karissa
Hagedom finished 10th in the javelin
with a heave of 101-8.
The men came away with first
and third place in the pole vault Tom
Richmond won die event with a vault
of 16-6 Va and Sean Chuma cleared
14-1 l'A for third.
Results from BYU were not
available.
ISU pounds Voss
as Huskers falter
By Brandon Schulte
Staff writer
Husker pitcher Jenny Voss returned
to her home state of Iowa on Sunday, but
she didn’t receive a warm welcome.
After racking up 121 victories, 71
shutouts, 16 no-hitters, five perfect
games and 1,152 strikeouts in her high
school career, it appeared that she
owned the state.
But Sunday, die Iowa State softball
team gave a resounding “no” to that line
of thinking, as it banged out 10 hits and
six runs in its 6-3 victory over
Nebraska.
The loss dropped NU to 25-15 on
the year and 8-5 in the Big 12
Conference as ISU improved to 19-26
overall and 3-8 in conference play.
The Cyclones got out of the gate
quickly with three straight hits and an
error to open a 3-0 at the end of the first -
inning.
NU got on the board in the third
when Jenifer Wiliams took ISU pitcher
Mandy Loushin deep for a solo shot
In the fourth, Wiliams came to the
plate again and wasted no time in deliv
ering a double to left to score Jessica
Draemal.
The score held at 3-2 until the fifth,
when ISU binged for three more runs.
NU attempted a late rally but could only
muster one more run.
Three Cyclones had two hits and
two RBI to move Loushin to 10-12 on
the season. Voss picked up the loss,
falling to 16-6.
Nebraska will next be in action on
Wednesday, when they travel to Omaha
to face Creighton for the fifth time this
season.
Texas takes regular-season
tennis championship
From staff reports
Although it ended with a loss, the
regular season was a good one for die
Nebraska men’s tennis team.
NU fell to No. 7Texas 6-1 Saturday,
leaving the Huskers with a 4-4 confer
ence mark and 9-11 overall. ■>
The only bright spot for NU came
from No. 5 singles Kai Rieke. Rieke
beat the Longhorns’ Nick Crowell 3-6,
7-5,6-0 forNU’s only win of the match.
No. 1 singles Dinko Verzi, No. 2
Lance Mills, No. 4 Juan Hamdan and
No. 6 Andrew Wiese all lost in straight
sets. No. 3 Jorge Abos-Sanchez tost in
the third set, 6-4,5-7,6-4.
Texas’ No. 1, 2 and 3 singles are
ranked in the top 100 nationally.
With the win, Texas claimed its third
Big 12 regular-season championship in
a row.
NU went into Saturday’s match on a
four-game winning streak. The Huskers
will have to get over the loss to Texas
quickly: The Big 12 conference tourna
ment starts Wednesday.
Seeded No. 4, the Huskers will face
Texas Tech in the first round of the tour
nament. NU beat the Red Raiders in
Lincoln earlier in the season 4-3.
NU takes bowling championship
From, staff reports
The Nebraska women’s bowling
team won the 1999 National
Intercollegiate Bowling Championship
by defeating Fresno State 2-1 this week
in Wichita, Kan.
NU used four consecutive strikes to
earn a come-from-behind victory in
game one 194-190. The Huskers trailed
by 20 entering the eighth frame, but
Kim Claus and Jennifer Daughtery
secured the win.
Daughtery threw a solid first shot in
the 10th, which was followed by a cross
over in the 11th to set up the final shot
With the team leading by a pin, she
threw a strike to cinch the victory.
FSU roared back in game two to
win 222-199, but in the end it was NU’s
tournament for the taking as it took an
early lead in the deciding game that it
would never relinquish.
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