5 Reasons Why 2009 Will Be a Great Season

1) Experience ? Nebraska returns every starter from the 2008 season and adds an additional returning starter in Robin Mackin, who transferred from Fresno State. The returning experience comes after the 2008 Huskers had no seniors for the only time in the 34-year history of the program and 12 of the 17 players on the 2008 roster had just one season of Division I experience or less.<?xml:namespace prefix="o" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"?>

The Huskers’ 2009 roster features 11 players who have started at least 50 career games, including four who have logged more than 100 career starts. Overall, Nebraska’s 2009 roster has combined for 1,221 career starts and 1,422 games played.

NU is especially experienced in the circle, as Mackin and senior Molly Hill each have recorded at least 50 wins, 500 strikeouts and 500 innings pitched in their careers. Between Hill and Mackin, Nebraska is unofficially the only team in the nation with two pitchers who have each reached each plateau. The 2009 Huskers are also the unofficial NCAA Division I leader with 1,433 staff strikeouts and 1,268.1 staff innings pitched, while ranking second with 126 staff victories. On the conference level, no other pitcher in the Big 12 Conference has thrown 500 career innings entering this season and only one has thrown more than 400 innings. Mackin and Hill rank first and second in the league in career starts, strikeouts, innings pitched and complete games.

Offensively, senior Crystal Carwile ranks first among active Big 12 players with 518 career at bats, while she also ranks in the top three in the league in doubles (first, 32), runs scored (third, 105), RBIs (third, 105) and home runs (third, 27).

2) Talent ? Nebraska’s 2009 roster features a total of five returning all-conference players, including one three-time all-conference selection and one two-time all-conference pick. The Huskers are also one of only three Division I programs to feature a 2008 Olympian on their roster, as junior right-hander Robin Mackin made three appearances in Beijing for Team Canada.

Four of the Huskers’ seven seniors have been honored as all-conference selections in their careers and that list doesn’t include Darcy Rutherford, who hit .325 last season with 26 runs scored and 11 stolen bases or Amanda Duran, a two-time junior college All-American who was selected as the top junior college catcher in the nation in each of her two seasons at Pima C.C. Duran also represented the United States at the 2007 World University Games in Bangkok, Thailand. She played in only 33 games last year, as a season-ending hand injury cut her season short.

Among the underclassmen, sophomore Heidi Foland was selected as the final Big 12 Player of the Week last season, as she became the first Husker freshman to earn the weekly honor since 2001. Nebraska’s five freshmen in 2009 combined for more than 10 all-state honors in their prep careers, while Ashley Hagemann was a two-time honoree as the Nebraska Gatorade Player of the Year.

3) Leadership ? After having zero seniors for the first time ever in 2008, Nebraska features seven seniors in 2009. The senior class is not only the largest in Head Coach Rhonda Revelle’s 17 seasons, it is the largest in the 34-year history of Husker softball. In Revelle’s tenure, she has coached five teams with at least five seniors. Those five senior-laden teams combined for a 175-76 record and a .697 winning percentage, averaging nearly 44 wins per season. The 2000 Huskers with five seniors produced a school-record 52 victories, while the 2006 squad ? which also featured five seniors ? finished with the second-best winning percentage in Nebraska history. Besides the 2009 Huskers, the only other Nebraska team with at least six seniors was the 1985 Husker squad which finished as the national runner-up.

4) Coaching ? Nebraska’s 2009 coaching staff features nearly 60 years of Division I coaching experience entering 2009, including more than 40 seasons at Nebraska alone. Head Coach Rhonda Revelle, entering her 17th season in 2009, is the winningest softball coach in NU history and the third-winningest coach in Nebraska history, regardless of sport. She has led Nebraska to six Big 12 titles and two Women’s College World Series appearances since 1998, producing 14 NFCA All-Americans and nine CoSIDA Academic All-Americans along the way. Revelle has also earned six coach-of-the-year accolades at Nebraska.

Nebraska will benefit in 2009 from a full season of coaching from Associate Head Coach Lori Sippel, who enters her 20th season on the NU staff. Sippel served as Team Canada’s head coach for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and she missed half of last season while training with the team. In Beijing, Sippel guided Canada to the medal round for the first time ever, where the Canadians finished fourth. Sippel specifically works with the Husker pitchers and has produced more All-Big 12 pitchers (15) than any other coach, while also tutoring three All-Americans since 1998. Sippel’s staff’s have ranked in the top 10 nationally in ERA twice since 2004.

The newest member of the staff is Diane Miller, the Huskers’ hitting and catching instructor who is in her first season. Miller spent the past eight seasons at Colorado State, where the Rams broke 44 Mountain West Conference records. Over the past five seasons, Colorado State’s average season consisted of a .307 average, 5.1 runs per game, 85 doubles, 65 home runs and a .489 slugging percentage. In the past three seasons, Miller’s Colorado State offenses ranked in the top 10 nationally 12 times in four different categories.

The Huskers also benefit from a volunteer assistant coach in former Husker Amanda Buchholz. A former high school head coach and All-Big 12 shortstop, Buchholz works with the NU infielders. Buchholz also played one season professionally in the NPF and she has been associated with the college game as either a player, student assistant coach or volunteer coach for nearly a decade.

5) History ? History may be on the Huskers’ side in 2009. Nebraska is hoping several past precedents come to fruition again as Nebraska aims for a return to the postseason. Among the historical notes of significance are:

?         Nebraska features five returning all-conference players on its 2009 roster. The last time the Huskers had five returning all-conference players was 2002, when Nebraska finished in a tie for fifth place at the Women’s College World Series. Interestingly, the 2002 squad returned two all-conference outfielders, two all-conference pitchers and one all-conference infielder, the identical breakdown as the 2009 Huskers.

?         Nebraska has a new full-time assistant coach for the first time since 2002. That year, first-year assistant Jen (Cline) Ogee was the Huskers’ new hitting coach and helped Nebraska improve its batting average by eight points while hitting 11 more home runs en route to qualifying for the World Series. This year, Diane Miller is NU’s new hitting coach and her 2008 Colorado State team batted .313 with 86 doubles, 68 home runs, a .522 slugging percentage and 302 runs scored.

?         The Huskers failed to win 30 games last season for the first time since 1997. The last time NU didn’t win 30 games in a season, it responded with one of the greatest seasons in school history the next year. After winning 29 games in 1997, the 1998 Huskers returned five all-conference players and finished 48-12 with an NU-record .800 winning percentage. Nebraska also posted the only undefeated Big 12 season in league history en route to winning both the regular-season and postseason conference crowns. NU finished fifth that year at the Women’s College World Series.

?         Nebraska has a program-high seven seniors in 2009. The only other time a Husker roster featured more than five seniors was in 1985, when the Huskers finished 38-11, won the Big Eight Conference and finished as the national runner-up to UCLA at the Women’s College World Series.