SportsMonday
Remember the Alamodome? NU headed south
BY DAVID DIEHL
The week and a half waiting game Nebraska
coaches, players and fans have been playing has
come to an end.
Nebraska (9-2) accepted a bid on Sunday to play
in the Dec. 30 Alamo Bowl against Northwestern (8
3) in San Antonio.With the bid, Nebraska, who is 2-1
all-time against the Wildcats, will be making its 32nd
consecutive post-season berth, an NCAA record.
Northwestern finished tied for the Big 10 title
with Purdue and Michigan, but Big 10 Coach of the
Year Randy Walker’s team didn’t earn a Rose Bowl
bid. The Boilermakers won the tiebreaker by defeat
ing both Michigan and Northwestern.
Alamo Bowl Executive Director Derrick Fox
made the announcement official with a late-after
noon conference call to Coach Frank Solich on
Sunday.
“There was resounding applause from everyone
in the room when we announced Nebraska,” Fox
told Solich. “We’re very excited to have your pro
gram.”
The bid wasn’t along Nebraska’s season opening
plans of being in a Bowl Championship Series game,
but NU will take it, Solich said.
“Every football team drives to be in a BCS bowl,”
Solich said. “But we know the Alamo Bowl is a great
bowl. We’ve talked to people who have been a part of
it before, and they’ve had nothing but good
remarks.”
However, as Solich said Nebraska was excited to
be making the trip to San Antonio, the Alamo bid is
given to the Big 12 conference’s No. 4 team.
Solich said as he watched conference champi
onship games on Saturday night and the Bowl
Championship Series selection show on Sunday, it
became evident where Nebraska was heading.
“It’s not what we were after,” Solich said, “but it’s
how it has played out. When you lose two ball games
like we have, all you hoped to accomplish may not
be there.”
Nebraska dropped from playing in the Jan. 1
Cotton Bowl because Kansas State was selected to
play in Dallas, and the conferences’ No. 3 slot, the
Holiday Bowl, went to Texas.
Late-season losses to No. 1 Oklahoma, 31-14,
and K-State, 29-28, gave Nebraska only an outside
shot at a BCS berth. Oregon State and Notre Dame
were selected as the two BCS at-large teams, bump
ing the Huskers out of consideration.
That left NU vying for a spot in Dallas or San
Please see ALAMO on 9
A statistical comparison between Nebraska and its
Alamo Bowl opponent Northwestern.
Headin’ __
forthe gg
9-2
459.1 (6)
321.8 (26)
41.45 (4)
19.4 (26)
349.27 (1)
110.6 (111)
8-3
G&efesa 475.6 (3)
iritai Defense 408.09 (89)
Seating Oifesse 38.55 (9)
Searing Defem® 30.4(85)
Rusfeag OSesst 257.27(8)
Passing Offense 218.1(51)
Melanie Falk/DN
Huskers survive Gamecocks' upset bid
BY BRIAN CHRISTOPH ERSON
Nebraska advanced to the Sweet 16 of the
NCAA Tournament on Saturday in a bite-your-lip,
tension-filled five-game volleyball affair that left all
involved emotionally and vocally void.
No. 1 Nebraska stumbled away bruised but vic
torious with a 15-11,9-15,13-15,15-12,15-13 win
over South Carolina in a marathon match that last
ed nearly 3 hours before a deafening crowd of 4,002
at the NU Coliseum.
Nebraska slinked to a 30-0 record while South
Carolina’s season ended at 22-7.
"I never had a doubt that we were going to win
that match,” Nebraska Coach John Cook said.
It's unlikely anyone would have blamed Cook if
a doubt did slip into his mind on Saturday.
The Gamecocks whipped the heavily favored
.. ....... Comhuskersin
Nebraska lo 9131515 game two, shut
SouthCarolna 1115151213 the door on a
* ’ .. Husker game
three comeback and found themselves up 12-8 in
game four.
“South Carolina played great tonight,” Cook
said. “They did some things we didn’t adjust to very
well tonight"
Nobody in a Husker shirt ever adjusted to USC's
sophomore outside hitter Cally Williams.
Williams ran off countless points serving the
ball, scoring four aces with some of them off of a
powerful left-handed jump serve.
“The jump serve is risky, but when you’re on
like I was tonight, you can land aces,” said Williams,
who also hammered home a team-leading 17 kills.
South Carolina Coach Kim Christopher said the
Gamecocks executed the game plan by serving the
ball tough over the setter, trying to factor out
Nebraska's sophomore setter Greichaly Cepero’s
playmaking ability.
“We've been working as a team at playing for a
high level, and we finally played with the type of
mentality that we have displayed in practice,”
Please see GAME on 9
Pilakowski bails
NU out off bench
BY DAVID DIEHL
By the time her Gamecocks’ upset bid fell short in
the fifth game, Coach Kim Christopher couldn’t even
tell Laura Pilakowski wasn’t playing with all her parts.
“That No. 9” had underwent an emergency
appendectomy just two weeks prior to Saturday’s
game and had been primarily sidelined until
Saturday night, when she played in three of five
games, the most action the Columbus native had
seen since Nov. 22 against Texas Tech.
Pilakowski, who didn’t see any action until she
started game three, recorded 15 kills and a .306hitting
percentage, second best for the Huskers on Saturday
night behind Amber Holmquist’s .400 average.
By the time South Carolina was in the midst of a
fifth game, Christopher said Pilakowski appeared to
be in top form.
“It seemed like she got healthy as the match went
Please see PILAKOWSKI on 9
Scott McClurg/DN
Husker setter Greichaly Cepero leaps in celebration with outside hitter Anna Schrad during the fifth game of their match against
South Carolina on Saturday. Nebraska defeated South Carolina in 5 games after being down 2 games to 1.
Husker women
falter in 2nd
halfvs.Bluejays
BY JOHN GASKINS
Scrappy little Creighton's 66-57 upset over big,
tough intrastate nemesis Nebraska could be per
fectly summed up by a two-minute stretch in the
brawl's second half.
With 10-and-a-half minutes to go and the
Bluejays up 43-39, CU’s Angela Tunmonds grabbed
the bail from NU’s Shannon Howell to force a jump
ball. The next seven possessions in the next seven
minutes saw three missed lay-ups, three missed
jumpers, three steals, three turnovers and two
Croiahton 66 star^c~ravhi8~mad coaches.
Mnhmrirn trr The defining moment
aHHHRe*. came when CU's Donna
Finch stole the ball from NU's Shahidrah Roberts
and coasted for a lay-up and six-point lead - a play
immediately followed by a Husker team that had
such a hard time getting the ball in-bounds and
down court, Timmons dove past NU’s Margaret
Richards, scooped the ball on the floor called a
quick time out
Thus, the turning point and the kind of action
the 2,019 Omaha Civic Auditorium fans witnessed
all afternoon - an ugly, intrastate slugfest that
resulted in experienced CU beating young NU to
the punch.
“Our coaches told us they were going to
(press),” Howell said. “We just didn’t do our job. We
matched their intensity, but they were getting loose
balls and crawling on the floor. They seemed to be
in the right place at the right time, and we weren’t.”
The Bluejays’ swamping full- court pressure
finally caved in on the Huskers in the second half,
as heavily-undersized CU rattled off an 11-0 run in
that stretch to go up 52-39 and held on to send NU
back down Interstate 80 licking plenty of wounds.
Creighton plucked 19 steals and forced 33 NU
turnovers in registering their first victory over the
Huskers in six years.
With seniors Amanda Went, Monique Whitfield
and Casey Leonhardt all in foul trouble and playing
erratically, none of the Huskers’ upstart freshman
and sophomores could save them from self
destruction.
“We panicked,” NU Coach Paul Sanderford
said. "That’s what young teams do when they fall
behind on the road. We didn’t have the composure
to get it together. We have the tendency to put our
heads down.”
In contrast, the veteran Jays were confident,
having taken eighth-ranked Iowa State to the
buzzer in front of 11,656 Cyclone fans before losing
74-71 Wednesday night.
CU rattled NU despite a four-point perform
ance from senior star guard Timmons, who was
averaging 21 points coming into the game.
Timmons jammed her thumb early in the game,
leaving supporters like senior Krissie Spanheimer -
who made 6 of 9 field goals and led all scorers with
14 points - to take over.
“I told them in the locker room after the game
that it’s nice to win a game against a quality oppo
nent and not have the Angela Timmons Show,” Yori
said after beating NU for just the third time in nine
tries.
“Any win against a team that’s getting votes in
the top 30 is a big win.”
Sooners and South Beach: OU in title game after victory
BY SEAN CALLAHAN
Kansas City, Mo.— Less than two
minutes remained when the oranges
started being thrown down on the
field at Kansas City’s Arrowhead
Stadium.
They couldn't have been tossed
out any earlier. In fact, they might
have been a little premature.
In front of a championship record
crowd of 79,655, Oklahoma’s 27-24
victory over Kansas State was not
clinched until Damian Mackey recov
ered an onside kick with 5 seconds
left
The top-ranked Sooner’s broke a
17-17 tie with 10 unanswered points
in the fourth quarter to outlast the
eighth-ranked Wildcats and win the
Big 12 Championship.
“This win just describes our sea
son,” OU coach Bob Stoops said.
“With all of the pressure of being No.
1, we were still able to come through
in the end.”
Oklahoma will play for its seventh
national title in the Orange Bowl
against Florida State on Jan. 3.
“Now, we’ve got a whole month to
think about it,” Stoops said. "I can’t
wait. We have a great history with the
Orange Bowl, and I hope that excel
lent history continues.”
The conference championship
was OU's first since 1987 and 37™
overall. That’s also the last time OU
played for the title and visited the
Orange Bowl.
The victory over KSU was the
Sooner’s second of the year—the
other being a 41-31 victory in
Manhattan, Kan. on Oct. 14.
The rematch turned out to be
everything it was advertised to be. But
Oklahoma continued to play with
their theme of the season—“Sooner
Magic.”
"We just find a way to win,” senior
quarterback Josh Heupel said. “We
just do enough to win. It’s something
special.”
Heupel’s 17-yard touchdown pass
to Andre Woolfolk in the fourth quar
ter gave OU a 24-17 lead. Heupel
threw for a season-high three inter
ceptions, but offset that by leading
Oklahoma to three second-half scor
ing drives.
With 1:25 left and facing a fourth
and three, the Sooners added to then
lead on a Tim Duncan 46-yard field
goal. The kick was Duncan’s longest of
the season, and it turned out to be the
difference for OU.
“We were about to go for it,”
Stoops said, “and then I just thought
Tim would make it. I guess it’s some
intuition.”
Even after the field goal, the game
wasn't quite over. KSU quarterback
Jonathan Beasley drove K-State down
the field and connected with Quincy
Morgan for a touchdown with 6 sec
onds left.
The ensuing onside kick was cov
ered by the Sooners, and they ran out
the clock for the victory.
Most of the credit for the victory
should go to OU defense, who held
the Wildcat offense to one touchdown
and 239 yards of offense.
Beasley only managed to throw
for 106 yards passing on 12-for-28
passing.
"Our defense may have been the
story of the game,” Stoops said. “What
we did all day was pretty special.”
Said Beasley: “They did a great job
stuffing what we were doing.”
And maybe the credit should go to
Stoops, who has compiled a 19-4
record in two seasons in Norman,
Okla.
On perhaps the games biggest
play, OU faced a fourth and 1 early in
the fourth quarter.
Instead of running up the middle
Stoops called for an option play, and
Quentin Griffin raced for 22-yards.
“That was just some Oklahoma
football of old,” Stoops said. “We
haven’t forgotten totally about the
option.”
Road win eludes NU
in waning seconds
BY JOSHUA CAMEN2IND_
Nebraska came close to getting its first road win
in 14 attempts on Saturday night at Pittsburgh.
But much like its season-opening loss at Oral
Roberts, the Huskers failed to maintain a first-half
lead and faltered in the final minutes, losing 52-51 in
front of5,062 at Fitzgerald Field House.
The Huskers did have a chance to win with 7 sec
__ onds remaining, but Cookie
Pittsburgh 52 Belcher, Kimani Ffriend and
Nebraska 51 Craig Wortmann all missed
opportunities to win the
game and time expired, leaving NU 2-2 on the year.
After shooting better than 55 percent in its first
three games, Nebraska shot only 40 percent against
the Panthers, something that NU Coach Barry Collier
attributed to several factors.
“I thought Pittsburgh played great defense
tonight,” Collier said. “We struggled to score the ball
Please see PITT on 9