Rohr of the Crowd - Feb. 16

Rohr of the Crowd is the official blog of Nate Rohr, the play-by-play announcer for Husker softball. Nate has called Nebraska softball games since 2004 and will call every game of the 2010 season. Look for new blog entries weekly.

Guile Steps Up

The Loudest Roars
Here is the audio of the two plays we're talking about,
first Ashley Guile's three-run double in the bottom of the third,
then Guile's two-run double in the bottom of the sixth.

It was only one game, but sophomore Ashley Guile showed signs of becoming a go-to run-producer with a 2-for-3, 5 RBI performance against Penn State in the Huskers' final game of the Hotel Encanto Classic Sunday in Las Cruces, N.M.

Nebraska needed that game from Guile. The usual No. 3 hitter, Julie Brechtel, was out with concussion-like symptoms. Even with Brechtel in the lineup for the first five games, Nebraska had struggled with runners in scoring position, hitting only .224. In the first three games (two vs. New Mexico State and Friday's game vs. UTSA), the Huskers were even worse with a runner at second and/or third, hitting just 5-for-30, good for only a .167 average.

On Sunday, after Penn State posted four runs in the top of the third to build a 5-2 lead, Nebraska needed to answer to stay in the game. The Huskers loaded the bases with the aid of two Nittany Lion walks and a hit batter, but had two outs as Guile came up to the plate. Guile made Penn State pay for the free baserunners with a double to right to empty the bases and tie the game at five.

The Nittany Lions regained the lead with a triple and a two-out error in the fifth. Nebraska built another threat with one out in the sixth. After back-to-back singles by Heidi Foland and Nikki Haget, Guile again came to the plate in a big spot, and again delivered with a double to center that scored two, gave Nebraska a 7-6 lead, and sparked a six-run Husker sixth that set up a pedestrian 1-2-3 seventh inning from a PSU offense that had scored 38 runs in the four games before their matchup with Nebraska.

Guile fit her job description to perfection Sunday. When Brechtel returns to the lineup, Guile will likely drop back to the No. 4 spot. With such a young lineup, the Huskers will need to cash whatever runners they get on base. If Guile can continue to produce in those big spots, Nebraska will be able to score runs this season.

Pitching Optional in Las Cruces

Stat of the Week
After starting 7-for-40 (.175) with runners in scoring position
in their first four games in Las Cruces, the Huskers began to
hit well in the clutch. Nebraska hit 10-for-22 (.455) with runners
in scoring position against Colorado State and Penn State

I joked on-air Friday that it was “pitching-optional” in Las Cruces that day. Maybe I should have said it was that way every day at the NM State Softball Complex. Of the 16 games played there this weekend (starting with Thursday's doubleheader between Nebraska and New Mexico State and concluding with Monday's 22-5 win by UTEP over the Aggies), there were a combined 219 runs scored, an average of nearly 14 runs a game, bringing the game to baseball-like levels of run scoring. Even taking out the “curve-buster” games (Monday's UTEP blowout win and NMSU's 28-7 bludgeoning of UTSA Saturday), teams put up a combined 11.2 runs per game. For comparison's sake, in 18 games played by Nebraska at Bowlin Stadium in 2009, the teams scored an average of just under seven runs a game, 125 runs in total.

At this time of year, you'd expect the pitchers to be a step ahead, as they would have their craft mastered coming into the year while the hitters work to regain their timing early on. But a number of factors worked to keep the scores high in Las Cruces.

First, at least three of the teams at the tourney (Nebraska, Penn State and Colorado State) had not practiced outside until they arrived in Las Cruces. The transition is greater than you would think. Fly balls look far different in bright sunlight than against a gray roof, and that's even without wind pushing the ball. Ground balls off dirt are a totally different issue than those off field turf. Also, New Mexico State's offense is really good. As we mentioned last week, they are one of the top offensive teams in the country and they returned seven of nine starters from last year's team that led the NCAA in batting average and ranked among the national leaders in most other categories.

As we've seen in baseball, altitude matters. Las Cruces' altitude is just under that of Denver, so the ball is helped by the lighter air, making home runs easier to come by. The dimensions of the park made it even better for hitters: 190 down either foul line, 220 to straight-away center with a six-foot high fence. At Bowlin Stadium, the fences are 200 down either foul line and 220 to dead-center with a six-foot high fence (new this year; the fence had been eight feet high since the park opened thru last year's game). Even ground balls were helped by a rock-hard infield.

So a tournament with at least three teams that hadn't played outside since the fall (and hadn't battled sunny skies, dirt, wind, etc.) and one of the nation's top offensive teams played in an environment conducive to offense set up for an offensive explosion. And that's precisely what we saw in Las Cruces.

Traveling is Always an Adventure
For some reason, Husker softball trips always bring out my clumsy side. Maybe it's the tight schedule, the transport from one far-flung place to another, or my own natural awkwardness, but whatever it is, I always seem to do something that provides unintentional entertainment to everyone in the travel party except for me. Perhaps the worst of these moments was when I sliced my chin open with a cheap razor while shaving before the first game in the Oklahoma weekend in 2005.

This season's first trip was no exception. On Wednesday night, we ate in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport while waiting for our flight to El Paso (we bussed from there to Las Cruces). I opted for a barbeque pork sandwich from one of the stands in the terminal. It took just a couple bites into my barbeque pork sandwich for a splotch of barbeque sauce to end up on my red Nebraska softball sweatshirt.

Then, midway through the trip, the zipper on my laptop bag broke. Understand that my laptop bag is my nerve center. In addition to carrying my laptop and power cord, it also carries my scorebook, Nebraska softball media guide, whatever opponent media guides I've been able to track down for that weekend, my index cards for each player, extra index cards, the colored pens I have to keep score (14 different colors!), binoculars, White-Out, a couple of notebooks, a copy of the rulebook, cough drops, highlighters, a flashlight, a screwdriver, digital voice recorders for the postgame highlight show, a couple of extra audio patch cords, a phone charger, a pocket-pack of tissues, hand sanitzer, Shout wipes (for incidents like the one above), scissors, tape, markers, extra batteries, a portable radio and the 90-second timer I use to remind me to give the score on air. If that weren't enough stuff, I carry around a binder with my notes on college softball, my e-reader and my planner loose from my bag. In addition, I carry around our broadcast gear in a small hard briefcase. It takes a lot of stuff to make me sound as good as I sound, however good that may be.

So I came into the trip already looking like someone who had broken into an office supply store and looted it. But now with the laptop bag broken, I had one more thing to juggle: My laptop. Carrying the computer itself wasn't bad; I eventually figured out that I could put it under my arm with the binder and other stuff. But that didn't solve the issue of the bag. I trudged around the DFW airport with a bag wide-open, flopping along my side as I walked along with my hands full of stuff. I was not the picture of grace at that moment, but then again, those moments of grace are few and far between for me on the road.

Weekend Warmup: Tiger Invitational, Auburn, Ala.
The second weekend of the Husker softball season takes the Big Red to Auburn, Ala., for the Tiger Invitational. This trip will bring senior shortstop Whitney Barrett within 64 miles of her hometown of Wetumpka, Ala.

As for Nebraska's opponents, Central Michigan will open its season against the Huskers on Friday morning. The Chippewas are coached by Margo Jonker, who is in her 30th season at the helm of CMU softball. Her 979 wins rank 9th in NCAA history, and she may be the only coach in the country whose team plays at a facility named for its still-active head coach. The Chippewas' home field was renamed Margo Jonker Stadium in 2008. Last year was a tough year for Central Michigan, as they finished 4-17 in MAC play, just the second time in school history that CMU had a losing record in conference play. One reason for those struggles was the absence of Kari Seddon, who was first-team all-MAC as a sophomore with a 10-9 record and a 1.91 ERA. She missed last season with Tommy John surgery. Central Michigan averaged fewer than three runs a game last year.

SIU-Edwardsville squares off with Nebraska on Saturday. The Cougars are a transitional Division I school and will eventually become members of the Ohio Valley Conference. The last time the Huskers faced an OVC school: the last game of the 2009 season at regionals, as Jacksonville State eliminated NU with a 4-1 win. SIUE will take on Jacksonville State Thursday before competing in the Auburn Invitational. They return five position player starters plus Erika Taylor, who basically split pitching duties straight down the middle with the departed Kaitlin Colosimo (Colosimo-24 starts, Taylor-23). Colosimo picked up the win in the Cougars' 2-0 victory over Missouri on March 4, 2009 in a doubleheader that SIU-Edwardardsville split with the Tigers. The Cougars are 1-2 to start the year.

The Huskers tussle with host Auburn on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. The Tigers were 3-2 at last weekend's Kajikawa Classic in Tempe. The season could not get off to a worse start for Auburn, as Danielle Lawrie threw a perfect game against the Tigers in the season opener, striking out 16. After getting shellacked 14-2 in their next game by No. 7 Arizona State, Auburn bounced back to beat Notre Dame, a team that received votes in last week's polls, and a pair of future Husker foes, Wisconsin and Texas Tech, winning by a combined 18-3 in those games. The Auburn game starts a brutal stretch in Nebraska's schedule in which the Huskers play 10 NCAA Tournament teams in 17 games. The Tigers were 1-2 last year in the Atlanta Regional. The stretch closes with back-to-back games against Arizona State March 13 and 14 to close tournament play.

Ohio faces Nebraska on Sunday. The Bobcats are still looking for their first win after going 0-5 at the Kajikawa Classic, including a 4-3 loss to defending national champion Washington and a 5-0 loss to 2009 regional champion North Dakota State. Ohio is coached by Jodi Hermanek, who is in her second year as the head coach of the Bobcats. Before coming to Athens, Hermanek coached Southern Utah, and was 0-3 against the Huskers in 2007 and 2008. Ohio returns every starter from last year's team and was picked to finished third in the MAC East.

That's all for now...we'll talk you Friday morning from Auburn!

Husker Power!

Nate