Rohr of the Crowd - Feb. 22, 2012

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 2012 season. Nate is not employed by the University of Nebraska and the opinions and content of this blog are his own. Look for new blog entries weekly.  

Stat of the Week: The Huskers averaged just over two runs for every offensive half-inning they were at the plate last weekend in Las Cruces.

The Loudest Roars: Lots to choose from last weekend, but we'll go with the monster home run by Tatum Edwards against New Mexico State Friday night. And Mattie Fowler capped the weekend for NU with her first career home run, a three-run shot that closed out the Huskers' fourth run-rule victory of the weekend.

Opportunity
@HuskerSoftball 12:38 p.m., Feb. 21, 2012
Great moments come from great opportunities. #GBR #HuskerSoftball

I'm glad the Husker Softball twitter account went to Miracle for an analogy this week (seeing as I myself already referenced the Miracle on Ice for this blog a couple of years ago). But there's no question: This weekend is a huge, huge opportunity for Nebraska Softball.

In Cathedral City, Nebraska will face four teams that are ranked in the top 20 of the NFCA poll. From those four teams, they'll face two pitchers who were All-Americans last year (first-team honoree Chelsea Thomas of Missouri and second-teamer Blaire Luna of Texas), another pitcher in Kaitlin Inglesby of Washington who is putting forth an All-America-level performance in both the circle (5-0, 1.27 ERA) and at the plate (.444 average, three homers, 13 RBI) so far this season and another in Jessica Moore of Oregon who was a first-team All-Pac-10 pitcher last year. The Huskers will face three teams that made it to Super Regionals last year, with Texas falling short of the round of 16 despite being a regional host and national seed.

In short, these are four top-notch programs Nebraska is facing this weekend. These are four programs that are where the Huskers want to return - among the nation's elite. These teams expect to host regionals. They expect to be national seeds in early May. They expect to be in super regionals.

This weekend is where the rubber meets the road for Nebraska in terms of making its case to be a national seed two-and-a-half months from now. This is the Huskers' opportunity to make their case directly against the teams they'll be battling for those treasured 16 national seeds, because these four will be in the discussion Nebraska wants to be in.

Adding some level of intrigue for me to this weekend is that, despite the fact that these are four non-conference opponents, three of them have played Nebraska in the last year. Luna shut down the Husker offense in a pair of appearances at Bowlin Stadium last year as the Longhorns eeked out a pair of heartbreaking wins over the Huskers. Luna pitched 12.2 innings of shutout ball in which she gave up a combined four hits while striking out 15. Thomas had the Huskers all tied up last year at Bowlin as well. If not for one inning in which she gave up three runs on three walks, a double and a hit batter, she would've shutout Nebraska in game one of the series, then given up just one in a win the next day. The Huskers did well to jump on Thomas' momentary struggles that Friday night in Lincoln, and Ashley Hagemann scattered six hits and four walks to allow just two runs, but it's still notable that for the most part, for two games, Thomas got the better of Nebraska last year. Then in the season opener this year, Inglesby locked down the Huskers' bats, not allowing a hit until the fifth inning, not allowing a runner to third base all game, and allowing two runners to reach in the same inning just once in the game.

Of course, Ashley Hagemann has similar familiarity with those three lineups. Against Texas, she locked down the Longhorns for two hits in game one, striking out 10. In game two, she held the powerful Longhorns lineup to just one run through six innings before her fatigue and UT's familiarity with her allowed Texas to stage a comeback with two in the seventh and one in the eighth to win it. We mentioned Hagemann's efforts in game one against Mizzou last year. In game two, she held the Tigers to one run through six innings before Missouri broke through with three in the seventh to ice the game. Though she took the 4-0 loss against the Huskies in the season opener, Hagemann settled down after giving up four runs in the first three innings to allow just one more hit the last three innings to keep Washington at four runs.

No championship is won or lost in the third weekend in a season. All is not lost if the Huskers struggle. But this weekend and specifically the four games against ranked foes will dictate a lot of Nebraska's opportunity to win a regional championship, or perhaps more. It's a great opportunity, and I'm hopeful that we'll see some great moments from the Big Red in Cathedral City.

They Look Ready
The good news is that Nebraska answered a good number of the questions raised by a tough weekend in Tempe by dominating in Las Cruces. Admittedly, the competition was a step down from this weekend in Cathedral City, or for that matter, the weekend before at the Kajikawa. But anytime a team plays five games in a weekend, wins four of them by the mercy rule and scores 10 runs in four of five games, they've done a whole lot right.

Let us not forget that Las Cruces is not an easy place for a visitor to win in. The Huskers struggled there two years ago, losing their first three games of the year to New Mexico State (twice) and Texas-San Antonio. Even last season, Nebraska dropped a game against the Aggies and held on 7-5 the next day.

The Huskers were dominant in virtually every phase. They outscored their opponents, 56-10. They scored in 17 of 27 offensive half-innings, including 13 of the last 17. Even the NU defense, which had wobbled in allowing 11 unearned runs over the last two games in Tempe, tightened up on a infield surface that made the softball act more like a superball when it landed right in front of the plate. The Huskers allowed just three unearned runs on the weekend.

Does that success transfer to those tough foes? I hope so. But at least the Huskers are playing fairly well heading into this huge weekend.

The Edwards Home-Run Derby
It seems appropriate, as the Huskers head to Cathedral City, Calif., some 80 miles from Murrieta, hometown of the Edwardses, that we check this fact: Both Taylor and Tatum Edwards homered against New Mexico State on Friday night. It was the fifth time in their respective careers that both have homered in the same game. In fact, Tatum has two two-homer games in her career, the other coming against Iowa State on May 10. In both, Taylor added a home run of her own.

Weekend Warmup: Cathedral City Classic, Feb. 24-26
The huge weekend for the Huskers starts Friday with one game against No. 19 Oregon. The Ducks took last week off after finishing 3-2 at the Kajikawa Classic. Last year, Oregon finished high in the Pac-12, tied for third with a 11-10 league record. The Ducks' season ended in super regionals. This year, Oregon's offense has been solid, averaging six runs a game while hitting .373 as a team in Tempe. Kelsey Chambers paced the Ducks' lineup by hitting 7-for-15 with two home runs, two doubles and 10 RBI. Oregon pitched well enough in Tempe, with first-team All-Pac-10 honoree Jessica Moore pitching four of the five games with a 2.16 ERA. Meanwhile, No. 2 pitcher Karissa Hovinga earned one win and had a 3.50 ERA in eight innings pitched. Hovinga is a Ralston, Neb., native, and a Papillion-LaVista graduate.

Saturday starts with a matchup against Cal Poly. The Mustangs also took last weekend off after participating in the Kajikawa Classic. Cal Poly dropped the first three games of its season (to Portland State, San Jose State, Georgia Tech) before shutting out Texas Tech, 3-0. No. 6 Arizona State run-ruled the Mustangs to close the weekend. Cal Poly struggled throughout the weekend, scoring just over two runs per game over the five games. Their pitching also had a tough time, as the Poly staff pitched to a team ERA of 10.23.

The Huskers face No. 5 Missouri in the second game Saturday. The Tigers are 3-1 after opening their season last weekend in Troy, Ala. Their lone loss of the weekend came to Eastern Kentucky. Missouri lost in 10 innings, 6-5, after holding a 3-1 lead through six innings. Junior infielder Jenna Marston has continued her strong performance at the plate, hitting 7-for-12 with three RBI, while Lindsey Muller and Ashley Fleming added two homers each. In limited work, Chelsea Thomas was solid, giving up just two unearned runs in two games and 9.2 innings pitched. Kristin Nottleman handled the bulk of the work in the circle for Mizzou, going 2-0 with a 2.00 ERA with 15 strikeouts in 14 innings.

Sunday starts with another matchup against a former Big 12 rival. This time, NU takes on No. 8 Texas. The Longhorns are 8-0 and up five spots in the national polls after a 3-2 win over No. 10 Tennessee. Lexy Bennett is off to a blistering start to the year, hitting .609 with two homers and 15 RBI. She's driving a Longhorn lineup that is averaging 9.5 runs a game. While Taylor Hoaglund isn't hitting for nearly as high an average (.240), she's already hit three home runs. Led by sophomore Brejae Washington, who ended the Tennessee game with a two-run, inside-the-park home run, the Longhorns have been blazing on the basepaths as well. Washington is tied with Hoaglund for the team lead with six stolen bases, and Texas has swiped 21 IN JUST EIGHT GAMES. Meanwhile in the circle, four Texas pitchers have seen action. Returning All-American Blaire Luna leads the staff, as expected, with a 4-0 record and an 0.29 ERA. She's struck out 43 in 24 innings pitched.

The weekend in Cathedral City ends with a date against No. 5 Washington, who are 10-0 to start the year. Kaitlin Inglesby hasn't let up since her impressive season-opening effort against Nebraska, hitting .444 with three homers and 13 RBI while also pitching to a 5-0 record with a 1.27 ERA while striking out 23 in 33 innings. Ahead of Inglesby in the order, Kimi Pohlmann has been doing a brilliant job of setting the table, hitting .500 while stealing eight bases.

That's all for now...we'll talk to you Friday in Cathedral City!

Go Big Red!

Nate