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by Sam McKewon
DN file photo
By Samuel McKewon
Senior editor
Amidst redwoods and static
temples of academia, it ended
Sunday night for the Nebraska
baseball team, one step short of
the promised land at the College
World Series, and the inevitable
red tide that would have inhabit
ed Omaha had the Comhuskers
been able continue their miracu
lous story that became the 2000
season.
In a three-game “super”
regional at Stanford University,
in a ballpark labeled the Sunken
Diamond, NU fell short, two
games to one, losing the rubber
match of the series 5-3. The
Cardinal, who figure to be a
favorite for the eight-team series
starting Friday, featured a pitch
ing staff that surpassed
Nebraska’s in sheer talent, and
nearly matched the scant earned
run average of the Huskers’ rota
tion.
It would be Stanford’s pitch
ing excellence, NU Coach Dave
Van Horn would say one day
later on the soon-to-be torn up
field of Buck Beltzer, that final
ly stopped Nebraska’s late sea
son surge, which included a Big
12 Tournament Championship
and a NCAA regional title in
Minneapolis.
With that surge, the
Comhuskers surpassed the 50
win plateau and became the
finest team in school history. A
record of 51-17, an ERA of 3.13,
along with school bests in base
hits (762) and strikeouts (484),
are proof enough of this distinc
tion, which does not begin to
take in consideration of the team
itself.
It was a course of adversity
that began close to season’s open
that salt-cured this Comhusker
team to its fate. There were
injuries and uncharacteristic
slow starts by more than a few
strong players. What buoyed
Nebraska then, and kept it so all
season, was a pitching staff that
belonged more in a baseball era
gone by than this age of metal
bats and short porches in right
field.
Assisted by a few NCAA
rules to deaden the efficiency of
those bats and artificially length
en those davenports, Van Horn
and Pitching Coach Rob
Childress assembled a rotation
that to untrained eye or Major
League scout, seemed unre
markable. But a 5-foot-9
Hawaiian surfer named Shane
Komine led them boldly, featur
ing a heater that ran 95 miles an
hour and pitching routine quick
enough to stumble the big lum
ber.
And then there was the walk
on senior Trevor Bullock,
holdover from the dim John
Sanders era. Along with him was
a true freshman Jaime Rodrigue,
who performed well enough to
earn a start in the team’s most
important game of the season
against Stanford. To them, R.D.
Spiehs, Steve Hale, Scott Fries
and Chad Wiles, amongst others,
can be added to a staff belonging
amidst the nation’s best.
That staff, as it were, could
not have been painted as the goat
in the Stanford series. Bullock
and Spiehs combined for a one
run outing in a game one win of
7-3, in which Stanford pitcher
Jason Young lost for the first
time in IS starts. And Komine,
who one week before had his jaw
broken by a line drive in a
regional game, offered what he
could against fellow Wahine
Justin Wayne. While Komine fal
tered, Wayne was too excellent to
have been defeated by anyone
short of the major leagues that
Saturday night; The Cardinal
won 7-1.
It left a Sunday game for die
marbles, so to speak, an offering
for Nebraska to deliver itself into
the bosom of a surely boisterous
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