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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 2000)
NU shoots for another shutout ■The soccer team is aiming for itsfourth infourgamesin Sunday's contest against Drury. BY ANAND MADHAVAN The Nebraska football team isn't the only team in Lincoln with a swarming defense. Maybe the NU women’s soc cer team should be known as the Lady Blackshirts. With three consecutive shutouts on the season - victo ries of 11-0, 5-0 and 4-0 - it is clear the Comhuskers have been very stingy, allowing only six shots on their own goal. “We defend as a team. We get excellent pressure from our for ward positions,” Coach John Walker said. “We also have some of the best defenders in the country.” One of those defenders is Husker senior Karina LeBlanc, the team’s All-American goal keeper. LeBlanc and the team’s fitness are key reasons why the Husker defense is so dominant. “The style we play is high pressure,” LeBlanc said. “We basically just wear the oppo nents down.” The Huskers’ next opponent is the Drury Panthers. The teams face off at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Abbott Sports Complex. Drury is a team the Huskers don’t know very well, but they do know the Panthers ended the ’99 season 12-6-1. The Huskers are taking Sunday night’s match as a chal lenge. “We're preparing for this File Photo Junior forward Kelly Rheem drives past a Southwest Missouri State defender in the Husker's shutout victory last week. The Huskers have yet to allow a goal this season. They hope to continue that streak against Dniry on Sunday. game like any other,” Walker said. "We are definitely focused on executing well.” LeBlanc agrees that focus is another key to the game. * "I know they are a team that if we don't play well, they have the potential to beat us,” LeBlanc said. “If we play like we can, things are gonna be good for us.” LeBlanc hopes to earn anoth er scoreless victory. It would be the fourth shutout posted by the Huskers this season. “I hope to get a shutout in the next game,” LeBlanc said. "Our team goal against Drury is to finish our chances that we get and set the pace for the game early.” Young runners get feet wet BY JILLZEMAN Nebraska’s top cross country runners will remain at home this weekend for the first meet of the season. And it's not because of a coaching error or an incredibly injury-plagued team. Rather, Saturday's meet, the Bearcat Distance Classic in Maryville, Mo., will be used as a warm-up for the younger, less experienced runners, said Jay Dirksen, who coaches the men’s and women’s cross country teams at Nebraska. "It’s kind of a low-key meet,” he said. "We like to take the freshmen to something other than the first home meet so they can get an idea of what it's like.” Dirksen said he wifi send four men to compete. They will be led by sophomore Jed Barta. Barta is recovering from a knee injury, and Dirksen said he expecdfrum to be in the top five or six of Mbraska’s runners by the end of the season. Sophomore Phil Davis and freshmen Eric Rasmussen and Kyle Wyatt will round out the men’s team. * With only four runners, the men will not be able to compete as a team, but Dirksen said the meet is for the individuals' benefits any » way. On the same note, Dirksen said he will send five women to run Saturday. They also will be focusing on their individual efforts. Senior Deb Osteen, sopho mores Melissa Drozda and Christy Linnell and freshmen Morgan Hartman and Hillary Laird will run the for the team Saturday, he said. The meet will be sort of a prac tice for most teams because the men and women will run shorter distances than in regular races throughout the season. The next meet for the Huskers is the Woody Greeno/Nebraska Invitational on Sept. 16 at Pioneers Park in Lincoln. Not your typical pushover team GASKINS from page 10 featuring Mr. Woods and Anna Kornikova (lucky for me) drop by. That’s all. Hell, even Cal and Stanford and Arena Football beat SJSU out in interest Go online to mercurycenter.com, the Web site for the San Jose Mercury News, a well-respected newspaper. There you will find a grand total of three football articles written from March 30 through the summer. Hungry for TV coverage? I worked for the sports dudes at San Jose’s lone television sta tion, KNTV (The area receives all of San Francisco’s stations.). Although the station is a chip shot^away from SJSU, the Spartans hardly ever get the top bill, unless they are playing Nebraska or Stanford. That’s not because of lazi ness. It's called viewer demand. And in the Bay Area, there is lit tle of it for Spartan football. Combine that coverage and recreational competition with the fact that SJSU is a total com muter campus (making UNO seem like Collegetown, USA), with a state university system that has strict gender equity rules that limit it to 96 football scholarships, and with five or fewer home games a year, and you’ve got a football program that won't be reaching Nebraska-like proportions any time soon. Which is why SJSU comes to Lincoln like Akron and Middle Tennessee State do in the first place: to live vicariously the life of a football school, and to make some bucks that may make it one in the very distant future. Hey, you never know. A less than disastrous showing at NU, a second-straight upset over Stanford and a fourth-place fin ish in the WAC, and SJSU may just find itself in the spanking new Silicon Valley Bowl, at its own stadium, which would surely be the crowning moment of recent Spartan football. Not that anyone would notice. Team to ignore scoreboard in Nil game jrAKiAiijTrom page 10 can’t quit at any time.” light end Sean Brewer, who Baldwin said could also line up at wide receiver and I-back, agreed, saying he doesn’t care what the score of the game is. “When I walk off the field I can say I competed hard against the No. 1 team in the country, that I left it all out there on that field, Brewer said. “Points I don't care about as long as I have that satis faction along with my team.” Competing with the No. 1 team in the nation also means competing with the huge support it gets, like 77,000 fans in red. Support that Brewer said he - envies. "But what else is there to do in Would you accept S30 to save kids- lives? I . Donate your life-saving blood plasma & receive $30 TODAY (for approx. 2 hours of your time). Call or stop by: Nabi Biomedical Center, 300 S. 17* Street, Lincoln 402-474-2335 Fmtturnanfcmwy»wy. CtftordtMi. vwew.nabi.com lNCUia^iva: uicwci adNCU. ivim a cow? Football is the big tiling each week - to drive however many miles to watch Nebraska play.” But despite the sea of red, and despite their huge underdog sta tus, the Spartans will try to hang in there o„n Saturday. They’re not dreading it. In fact, exactly the opposite is true. “I'm really, really excited,” Brewer said. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime to go out there and compete with them. I can’t wait to see what it’s all about” “Regardless of what the situation is in this first game, I would like to see us playing as hard on the last snap... as we did on the first snap.” Dave Baldwin San Jose State football coach Internet Nebraska .95/month Call 434-8680 Badgers forced to bench 11 players ■The NCAA suspended 26for receiving unadvertised discounts at a shoe store. v THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The NCAA suspended 26 Wisconsin football players Thursday for receiving unadver tised discounts at a shoe store, forcing the Badgers to bench 11 players for their season opener. Some of the players sus pended for the No. 4 Badgers’ game with Western Michigan on Thursday night included start ing receivers Chris Chambers and Nick Davis, cornerback Jamar Fletcher, offensive line man Ben Johnson and line backer Bryson Thompson. Eleven of the 26, including Fletcher, Davis, Johnson and Chambers, were suspended for three games for receiving bene fits of more than $500, school officials said. Another 15 players, includ ing running back Michael Bennett, defensive tackle Wendell Bryant, cornerback Mike Echols and Thompson, were suspended for one game and ordered to do 12 hours of community service. Chambers’ suspension could be an especially tough blow to the Badgers. The team’s leading receiver from last season was already sidelined by a stress fracture in his right foot. He was expected to be kept out until at least the end of September. School officials aren’t sure if he will be allowed to serve the sus pension while injured, meaning he could miss more than half the season. "I think you have tremen dous disappointment. You have to feel for them,” Wisconsin ath letic director Pat Richter said. “We felt this was not warranted." The NCAA ordered all 26 players to serve the suspensions within the first four games of the season. The other six suspended for Thursday’s game were: Delante McGrew, George Pratt, Ryan Simmons, Chuck Smith, Stephon Watson and Scott Wille. The suspensions stem from reports last month that mem bers of the football and men’s basketball teams may have received special credit arrange Doubles - 3-Person - 4-Person Leagues Greek - Residence - Independent - Fac/Staff Teams Wanted! Sign up at East Campus Union Info Desk or Lanes n’ Games For info: 472-9627 ments at ine bnoe box in Black Earth, Wis., that were not avail able to other clients. Another 21 players, includ ing starting quarterback Brooks Bollinger, were nost suspended but were ordered to perform 24 hours of community service for the discounts they received. Women’s soccer player Wynter Pero was suspended for two games arid ordered to do 24 hours of community service. All will be required to repay the discounts they received. The school also investigated allegations that some athletes may have exchanged university issued shoes for merchandise but found no evidence of that so far, said Melany Newby, vice chancellor for legal and execu tive affairs. A report in the Wisconsin State Journal detailed purchases by eight members of the Badgers’ Final Four men’s bas ketball team and 14 players from the Rose Bowl champion foot ball team. The paper reported players received discounts of 25 percent to 40 percent and inter est-free credit. The university and NCAA still have to review the eligibility of winter athletes who also could face penalties. 1116 NCAA notified the uni versity Monday that 81 fall ath letes would be ineligible in vari ous capacities. Richter said the university appealed the finding, and the NCAA then decided to knock down the number of ath letes required to serve suspen sions and pay reparations to 48. Richter said the university proposed lighter sanctions when they made their initial report to the NCAA, and many of the players told NCAA officials they did not know they had vio lated any rules. “This was a shock to them,” Richter said. NCAA spokesman Wally Renfro confirmed the suspen sions but would not comment specifically on the infractions. Shoe Box owner Steve Schmitt said Thursday he talked to university officials several times about the discounts he offered players, which he said are extended to all his regular customers. Schmitt has men’s basketball 7 think you have tremendous disappointment. You have to feel for them. We felt this was not warranted." Pat Richter Wisconsin athletic director season tickets and has donated money to the university in the past, which would qualify him as a booster under NCAA rules. Newby said the university^ investigation was continuing and the school had not made a recommendation to the NCAA on whether the violations con stitute a major or secondary vio lation. But the players’ trans gressions individually were ruled to be secondary. If the purchases constitute a major rules violation, it would be the third such infraction within the last decade for the university. The wrestling program was put on probation in 1994 for improper use of booster funds that included impermissible benefits to athletes, a major rules violation. Last year, the NCAA found the athletic department had committed a major rules infrac tion because coaches and staff members received reimburse ment for expenses from a boost ers fund without approval from the chancellor. That probation was sched uled to end in November. Still, the NCAA Committee on Infractions did not penalize the university under repeat vio lator rules last year, partly because Wisconsin self-reported the violations. Floor Concepts Already low priced carpet remnants for dorm rooms . 30% off with student I.D. 3260 N 20th 477-8606 (1 block N 20th Cornhusker) I