SportsMonday
Husker volleyball team reaches for No.1 spot
BY SAMUEL MCKEWON
SOUTH BEND, Ind.
-Nebraska might have a young
volleyball team, and it might
rely on two sophomores to pro
vide a large chunk of the offen
sive production.
But after Sunday’s five-set
victory (12-15,15-11,13-15,15
1, 15-10) over No. 3 UCLA, it
might be the No. 1 team in the
country. The win capped off a
perfect weekend against ranked
teams at the Notre Dame adidas
Invitational.
With losses from No. 1
Stanford and No. 2 Long Beach
State earlier in the week, the
matchup between the No. 4
NEBRASKA 12 15 13 15 15
UCLA 151115 110
Huskers (7-0) and UCLA’s Bruins
(5-3) became a game for No. 1.
In front of a sparse crowd at
the Edmund R Joyce Center, the
Bruins, behind a big block and
key defensive plays and rallies,
took a 2-1 lead with a 15-13 win
in game three.
But first-year NU Coach
John Cook had a hunch UCLA
was wearing down mentally in
the third game, and though the
Huskers lost, he sensed a
momentum shift.
“It was building then,” Cook
said. "You get in games like that
and you think the other team is
going to fold, to let up. We never
let up. They did."
Nebraska pounced on the
Bruins with a 15-1 win in the
fourth as UCLA wilted under the
1-2 punch of sophomores Laura
Pilakowski f and Amber
Holmquist.
Pilakowski led all players
with 20 kills and added 6 blocks.
"The first couple games
there wasn’t anybody to block
me,” Pilakowski said. "But then
they started coming at me and I
just had to hit through them.”
And then there was
Holmquist* whom Cook said
was disappointed with her per
formance against Colorado
State last weekend. Holmquist
dropped several backslide kills,
hitting .404 for the match and
pounding out 15 kills overall.
The Bruins didn't have an
answer. Though the pre-season
No.l team is full of veterans, it
was UCLA that was wore down
playing its third match of the
weekend.
“I thought we were okay,”
said UCLA Coach Andy
Banachowski. “Then they just
took a little bit out of us. Then
they started point-running and
then it was over.”
Please see TO u R N E Y on 13
Porter falls inNU'strap
BY JOHN GASKINS
Impending doom kept coming at Kristee Porter and eventually it
got to be too much.
Volleyballs rained down on the UCLA star outside-hitter like bul
lets, as she knew they would. Even though her status as target No.l
led to a mostly nightmarish performance, Porter didn’t seem to be
pulling out her hair after fourth-ranked Nebraska shut her down in
the final two games of the Bruins' five-set loss.
In fact, Porter seemed delighted to be heading out of South Bend
after the latest knockout blow the pre-season No. 1 Bruins were dealt.
Her knees stinging in pain, Porter was still able to laugh when
asked what troubled her most about NU.
Please seeuCLAon13
THE ONE
THAT GOT
AW AY:NU
quarterback Eric
Crouch scram
bles away from
Notre Dame
linebacker
Anthony
Denman to the 4
yard line for a
gain of 11 yards
with 435 left in
the half. Crouch
would later
score on a quar
terback sneak
from the 1 yard
line to put NU
up 14-7. Crouch
scored three
touchdowns on
the day. Please
see complete
gameday cover
age on pages 8
9.
Husker golf teams swing into new season
Women's team expecting
to have successful season
BY DAVE BRANDON
After engineering a successful season,
most teams hope to pick up right where
they left off.
The Husker women’s golf team, on the
other hand, isn’t just hoping to. They’re
expecting to.
Expectations may become reality today
at the Yankee Hill Country Club as the Alltel
Husker Invitational kicks off the fall season.
The two-day, 54-hole tournament will fea
ture 16 teams, six of which finished among
the nation’s top 50 a year ago.
“Anything is possible in golf,” said Coach
Robin Krapfl. “But I'd really like to win this
tournament”
Doing so will be a chore, especially with
Big 12 foes such as Oklahoma and Missouri
in the field. The Comhuskers, however, feel
confident, employing four players with
three years of experience.
That group is headed by junior Sarah
Sasse, fresh off her second-place summer
finish at the World University Golf
Championships in Ireland. Sasse will lead a
Husker team which finished 11th nationally
in short game a year ago.
Right behind Sasse will be the lone sen
ior of the squad Amy Roux. Roux will be
looking to improve her average of 78.84
from a year ago.
Coach Krapfl said she sees her two
front-runners as gems.
“Sarah and Amy have been lighting it up
these last three weeks,” she said. “They’re
our 1-2 punch, and I’d put them up against
anyone in the country.”
Rounding out the Husker lineup will be
juniors Amanda Sutcliffe and Catha
Fogelberg, along with sophomore Amanda
Crane.
Coach Krapfl said last year’s campaign
will be like a shadow of this year’s.
“We have another very talented team
this year, one that is mentally tough and
ready to go.”
Stiff competition marks
men's golf invitational
BY KRISTEN WATERS
For the second year in a row, the
University of Nebraska men’s golf team will
play host to the Fairway Club Invitational at
Firethom Golf Club.
The 12-team tournament will include
three other Big 12 teams: Missouri, Kansas
State and Iowa State.
“It’s nice to be hosting our own tourna
ment” Coach Larry Romjue said.
The men's golf team teed off the season
last week at the Jordan Invitational in
Columbus, Ga.
Heavy rain shortened that 12-team
tournament, leaving the Cornhuskers in
ninth place with 452.
The Huskers finished 14 points behind
first-place University of North Carolina
Charlotte, which will play in this week’s
tournament.
“The kids played well, but they only got
half a tournament in. So we really didn’t fin
ish the way we would have liked to,” Romjue
.. we really didn’t finish the
way we would have liked to."
Larry Romjue
men’s golf coach
said.
Despite the ninth-place finish, junior
Seth Porter finished fourth individually after
firing a 71 in the first round and a 36 in the
second round, for a final score of 107.
“Seth is one of the better players in the
Big 12,” said Romjue. “He has a good chance
of winning the tournament this week.”
Other Husker finishers included Kevin
Bryson, 114; Jim TYoy, 115; Blake Humbles,
116; and Rob Arthur, 119. Teams will begin
the first round Monday, Sept. 11 at 8 a.m,
and the second round Tuesday at 8 a.m.
“There will be three or four other good
teams here, but we’ve got a good shot.”
Romjue said.
NU soccer scores weekend wins
BY THOMPSON HERMAN
It was business as usual for the
Nebraska women’s soccer team this past
weekend. Well, almost.
The Comhuskers did surrender their
first points of the season in defeating
Florida 7-2 on Friday night and Purdue 4
1 on Sunday afternoon at the Abbott
Sports Complex. But overall, Nebraska
(6-0-0) looked every bit like the third
ranked team in the country.
The 24th-ranked Boilermakers
became the first team this season to stay
close to Nebraska beyond the first half.
After Nebraska’s Meghan Anderson
launched a free kick past the Purdue
goalie to give the Huskers a 1-0 lead,
Purdue’s Courtney Coppedge beat
Nebraska’s Karina LeBlanc to make the
first half score 1-1.
Nebraska, which was admittedly
sluggish in the first half, unleashed a flur
ry of shots to begin the second. Anderson
struck again with a left-foot blast that the
Purdue goalie could only stand and
admire. Seconds later, Christine Latham
NEBRASKA
FLORIDA
7
2
NEBRASKA
PURDUE
4
1
tallied her seventh goal of the season on a
long-range score.
Freshman midfielder Christy Harm
completed Nebraska’s second-half
assault when she outran a Purdue
defender for the ball, knocked it to the
ground after a high bounce, and snuck it
through for a 4-1 lead.
Nebraska didn’t allow the
Boilermakers a shot on goal in the sec
ond half.
Much credit for the second- half reju
venation went to Anderson, who was dis
pleased with her team’s effort to open the
game.
“We were beating ourselves. We
weren’t playing hard,” she said. “Purdue
was beating us to the ball the first half
and doing a lot of things that we usually
pride ourselves on doing well.”
Nebraska Coach John Walker said the
second half was better.
"Playing on Friday night and playing
in the heat today is no excuse for our first
half performance,” Walker said. “Purdue
did a better job competing. We have to
learn to play a full 90 minutes and not
just in spurts.”
Nebraska embarrassed Florida
before a crowd of 1,524 on Friday night.
The two teams fought to a 2-2 tie early
this spring, but Nebraska had this one
put away midway through the first half.
Jenny Benson, Becky Preston, and
Latham turned a scoreless game into a 3
0 runaway by each scoring a goal in a
three-minute span. Nebraska’s fourth
goal, credited to forward Kelly Rheem,
was actually bumped in by a Florida
player.
Latham then scored her second goal
of the game, as did Benson, who com
bined a pretty crossover move with an
even better shot that made it 6-2
Please see s O c C E R on 13
David Gasen/DN
Nebraska Forward Najah Williams beats Purdue's Kerry
Maloney on Sunday afternoon during the Huskers'4-1 win.
Knight
fired for
violating
policies
■The Indiana University
basketball coach has a history
of personality conflicts, temper
tantrums on and off the court.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
INDIANAPOLIS — Bob
Knight’s temper finally did him
in.
Knight was fired on Sunday
for a "pattern of unacceptable
behavior" at Indiana, ending
three tumultuous decades at a
school where he was one of bas
ketball’s best coaches but also
one of its most volatile.
Indiana University
President Myles Brand, who
announced the firing at a news
conference, called Knight “defi
ant and hostile” and said the
coach had shown a “continued
unwillingness” to work within
the guidelines of the athletic
department.
Knight also violated the
school’s “zero-tolerance” policy
by grabbing a freshman by the
arm last week to lecture him
about manners after the stu
dent said, “Hey, what's up,
Knight?”
The coach, famous for his
red Hoosiers sweater and blue
language that he bellowed at
players from the sideline, was
already in trouble for a history
of outbursts at Indiana, where
he won three national champi
onships.
The 59-year-old Hall of
Fame coach was warned in May
about his behavior after an
investigation into accusations
he choked one of his players
during practice in 1997, an act
caught on videotape.
But his conduct became
even worse, Brand said, and he
had been disrespectful to alum
ni and failed to show up at cer
tain community events.
Brand stressed that Knight’s
run-in with 19-year-old Kent
Harvey on Thursday was not the
only reason for the coach’s dis
missal.
“If that was the only
instance that took place you
would not be here today,” Brand
told reporters.
Knight held a news confer
ence on Friday to explain his
side of the story, complete with
a diagram on a blackboard and
re-enactment of the encounter
with Assistant Coach Mike
Davis.
Harvey, stepson of a Knight
critic and former local talk radio
show host, had addressed the
coach by his last name as they
crossed paths at Assembly Hall,
a greeting Knight deemed disre
spectful.
The coach said he did not
curse at Harvey but did briefly
hold his arm and lecture him
about manners.
"I would have to be an
absolute moron - an absolute
moron - with the things that
have been laid on me to grab a
kid in public, or curse at a kid in
public, as apparently it’s been
said that I did," Knight said at
the time.
The search for a new coach
will begin immediately, Brand
said.