Baseball team goes 1-2
By Jason Merrihew
Staff Writer
The Marriot Loup Rice Classic
proved to be harsh on the S^-ranked
Nebraska baseball team. The
Huskers ended the tournament with
one victory and two heartbreaking
losses.
The Cornhuskers were able to
pick up their first victory of the 2000
season, whipping Arkansas State 10
3.
NU was able to pouitce on ASU
early in the game, scoring four runs
in the first inning and five runs in the
second.
The Huskers were able to pro
duce nine runs off their first nine hits.
The 10th run came off the bat of
junior first baseman Dan Wright.
Wright’s solo homerun was the first
of the season for Nebraska.
Chad Wiles started and earned
his first victory of the season for NU.
In six innings of work, Wiles struck
out six, while giving up three runs off
11 hits.
The Cornhuskers were shocked
during their opening game of the sea
son when Northwestern State (La.)
rallied to score three runs in the top
of the ninth to beat Nebraska 8-6.
The Demons, who faced their
former coach in current Nebraska
Coach Dave Van Horn, jumped on
the Huskers early, knocking NU
starter senior Scott Fries out of the
game after 2.1 innings.
NU also dropped a game to No. 7
Rice, 2-1.
The 1-2 Huskers will play this
Thursday when they travel to Texas to
play at the Texas-Arlington
Tournament.
Softball team slips out of gate
From Staff Reports
The Nebraska softball team kicked
off its 2000 campaign in the wrong
direction at the Fiesta Bowl
Tournament in Phoenix.
After opening play with a 5-4 win
against Wisconsin, the Cornhuskers
dropped their final five games of the
weekend to finish 1-5.
On Thursday, the Huskers fell
behind 6-1 against Nevada Las Vegas.
NU fought back to get within one run
but would get no closer. Nebraska lost
to the Rebels 7-6.
Senior Jennifer Lizama was three
for-six with two homers, and freshman
Amber Burgess was five-for-eight to
lead NU on Thursday.
On Saturday, the Huskers faced
their toughest challenge of the tourna
ment with games against No. 3 Fresno
State and No. 9 Arizona State.
NU would go on to lose to the
Bulldogs 5-3 and the Sun Devils 7-1.
In the tournament’s final day,
Nebraska gave up 15 runs in its two
losses.
Against Cal State-Fullerton the
Huskers were blanked 8-0.
In NU’s final game, No. 21
Stanford defeated NU 7-2.
Senior pitcher Jenny Voss took the
loss to the Cardinals to drop her season
record to 0-3.
The B^-ranked Huskers will trav
el to Las Vegas next weekend for the
UNLV Classic.
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Cyclone coach estatic over run
By Joshua Camenzind
Staff writer
Iowa State Coach Larry Eustachy
knew the time was coming for a let
down.
And he had Saturday night’s
matchup against Nebraska circled on
the schedule.
“This is a game that really wor
ried me,” Eustachy said. “They are
very talented and capable of coming
into this building and beating us.”
With his team’s first place con
ference standing and eight-game
winning streak on the line, Eustachy
watched as his team looked to be
cruising early with a 14-2 lead.
Hilton Coliseum and the more than
14,000 in attendance were looking to
explode after back-to-back 3-point
ers by Kantrail Horton and Michael
Nurse.
But even after extending the lead
to 15 at 20-5, Eustachy was still
wary.
“We had a little falseness to the
game at the beginning,” Eustachy
said. “We had a huge lead at the
beginning, and that creates problems
at times.”
Nebraska was able to battle back
to take the lead at 26-25 at the 5:18
mark on a 3-pointer by Louis
Truscott. The Huskers and Cyclones
battled back and forth, and ISU
entered the locker room with a four
point lead at 38-34.
As bad as ISU played in the final
10 minutes of the first half, the sec
ond half took a 180-degree turn. Poor
shooting that plagued the Cyclones
during NU’s run was lifted by an
assortment of dunks, layups and 3
point bombs that ignited the home
crowd.
The Huskers hung with Iowa
State for the first three minutes, and
then came the run.
A 32-7 run at that. The run ended
at the 11:05 mark with a Marcus
Fizer foul and subsequent free
throws by Steffon Bradford. Fizer,
who led ISU with 23 points on nine
of-10 shooting, would leave the
game and never return.
NU wilts during 2nd half drought
HUSKERS from page 20
down,” Nee said. “But that run in the
second half did us in.”
Indeed, Nebraska was feisty in the
first half, erasing an 18-3 deficit,
silencing the crowd with three con
secutive 3-pointers to take a 26-25
lead after a Louis Truscott shot.
However, Iowa State combated
the Huskers with the inside and out
side combination of Fizer and guard
Michael Nurse, who hit four shots
from behind the arc on his way to 19
points.
“They have so many weapons and
how they go about it. They can hit the
three-pointer with Nurse, and they
can kill you inside physically,” Nee
said.
Then there are the bench weapons
of the Cyclones, as Iowa State reserve
Brandon Hawkins chalked up three
baskets in the late minutes of die first
half to gain ISU a four-point lead at
intermission, making the score 38-34
after trailing briefly by a point.
“We knew if we played in the sec
ond half like we did in the first half,
we weren’t going to come out with a
victory, so we turned it up,” Fizer
said.
Despite the Cyclones’ added
intensity and customary trips to the
free-throw line (ISU ended with 31
attempts on the game compared with
the Huskers’ 10), the game still hung
in the balance when Danny Walker
-banged home a 3 to bring the score,
back to 45-41 early in the second half.
Then the gas tank hit empty for
the Huskers.
“They’re a top-20 teapi,” guard
Cary Cochran said. “Vbu spend so
much energy coming back against a
team like that, and they’ve still got *
their guns cocked.” (
The gunshots came from
Nurse, Fizer and sehior Stevie
Johnson, who scored all the
Cyclones’ points during the 25-2 run.
Along the path, Iowa State scored
17 consecutive points, making it a 27
point game at 70-43 before Steffon
Bradford finally stopped the bleeding
with two free throws.
It was another lesson learned in a
season of lessons for Nebraska.
“We need to take that way we
played in the first half and play that
way for 35 to 40 minutes to play
against ranked competition,” junior
guard Rodney Fields said, after com
ing off the bench to score 11 points.
The Huskers have little time to
contemplate their woes, as they wel
come the Sooners to town this
evening. ,
“It’s time to go back to the lab and
find a new formula,” Fields said.
It didn’t matter.
“It was great for me to sit on the
bench and watch other guys have
fun,” said Fizer, who also was both
ered by a sore throat. “It was a big
break for me to sit down with a com
fortable lead and let other guys get on
the floor who don’t get to play that
much.”
With Fizer on the bench, the
Cyclones would extend their lead to
as much as 31 points with seven min
utes remaining. The play of his team
had Eustachy elated after the game.
“To do what we did in the second
half, I was really pleased with my
team.” Eustachy said. “Our defense
triggered everything.”
Iowa State also was helped by a
better performance from its two
starting guards. Jamaal Tinsley and
Michael Nurse shot a combined one
for-14 in the first half but were able
to hit six-of-nine in the second on
their way to a combined 28 points.
Fizer said the second-half run
might have been the best basketball
that ISU has played all season.
“We made a lot of big plays,”
Fizer said. “But we also made a lot of
mistakes in the first half. We knew
that if we played like we did in the
end of the first half, we weren’t going
to come out of here with a victory.”
Kansas angry after close loss to NU
ny jomi uasiuiis
Sta ff writer
Of all teams that could have been
the ideal candidate to drive a stake
through Nebraska’s heart this season,
No. 23 Kansas on Sunday would have
been the front-runner.
And until the final 20 seconds, it
was playing the role perfectly.
The Jayhawks were riding a five
game winning streak and thirsting for
revenge from NU’s 81-69 dismantling
of them last month. They didn’t want to
become the first KU team since 1988 to
get swept by NU.
The Jayhawks also were looking to
take advantage of a disgruntled
Cornhusker team that had everything
going wrong for it during its recent
three-game losing streak, including its
slimming NCAA Tournament hopgs.
Throughout the game, KU came
uatK iium several i ive-pius-poini
Husker leads - including a 70-63 NU
edge with 1:44 left - to find itself tied at
72 with 33 seconds left.
But the Jayhawks failed to put the
stake in NU. They failed at the begin
ning, when they found themselves
down 23-11, and they failed at the end,
when they couldn’t get a shot off with
six seconds left.
“It’s a tough loss,” KU Coach
Marian Washington said. “If we were to
spot when we lost it, I’d say it was in the
first half when we gave up 17 turnovers.
I am encouraged our team fought back
and got ourselves in a position to win.”
Washington credited forward Lynn
Pride, an All-American candidate, with
giving KU the boost it needed to come
back several times. Pride fmished with
18 points.
But it was guard Suzi Rayman, who
led the Jayhawks with 20 points, that
couia nave oeen une HusKers laiesi
heartbreaker. She hit the 3-pointer that
tied the game and had a wide open look
at another one with KU down 74-72
with eight seconds left.
Raymant missed the shot. NU’s
Charlie Rogers was fouled on the
rebound but missed the second of her
free throws, giving the Hawks one last
shot. Guard Jennifer Jackson couldn’t
get the last-ditch shot off in time.
After the game, an “emotionally
drained” Raymant covered her face and
fought back tears. She tried to explain
why KU - not NU - ended up the heart
broken team.
“That last shot I took, I was wide
open. I just rushed it,” Rayman said.
“We felt like we were going to come
back the whole time. There were some
mental errors we made at the end that
really let us down, and that was hard to
come back from.”
Kubik’s big day helps Huskers snap streak
WOMEN from page 20
“Our goal this game was not to let it
bother us. It looked like it was happen
ing again today, but we huddled up and
said, ‘Foiget about it; don’t talk to the
referees, just keep on playing.’”
After KU tied the game at 72 on a 3
pointer by Suzi Raymant with 33 sec
onds left, Kansas made a costly error.
Miscommunication between Jayhawk
Coach Marian Washington and guard
Jennifer Jackson led to an intentional
foul of Nebraska’s Amanda Went with
20.1 seconds left in the contest.
Went made both foul shots to give
NU a two-point cushion, and Raymant s
rushed 3-point attempt with six seconds
remaining and another free throw from
NU went awry to seal KU’s fate.
Even though Nebraska swept
Kansas for the first time since 1988,
Husker Coach Paul Sanderford com
mended the Jayhawks for coming back
to tie the game.
“You got to give Kansas credit,
down the stretch, on the road in a hostile
environment, I thought they played like
a top-10 basketball team. They made
every play, and they executed.”
NU was forced to play a majority of
the game with four guards because ill
ness limited NU Center Casey
Leonhardt to six minutes of action.
Tthe small lineup created matchup
problems for the more Jayhawks.
Nebraska was able to stick to its
game plan of dribble-drive penetration,
as it scored nine lay ups by attacking the
basket, and it passed off for two key 3
pointers by Went and Melody Peterson
in the second half.
Defensively, NU forced KU to
commit 27 turnovers for the game,
including 17 in the first half.
Sanderford said he was proud of the
way his team responded Sunday to end
its three-game losing streak.
“Today we responded like a basket
ball team that’s not through,”
Sanderford said. “I’ve told reporters for
two or three days now that we’re not
through. We’re going to make some
noise in the Big 12 Conference and beat
some people before the year is out.”
“And I think you saw evidence of
that today. We’re not dead.”