Rohr of the Crowd - Feb. 28, 2013

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 2013 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: Tatum Edwards' batting average is 59 points higher, and her slugging percentage is 119 points higher when she hits and pitches in the same game as opposed to just being in the lineup.

Getting Closer
The biggest thing I took from Cathedral City was how close the Huskers were to beating the nation's elite softball teams. Against No. 1 Oklahoma, which has looked unbeatable all year, Tatum Edwards no-hit the powerful Sooners lineup for six innings before finally allowing an infield single to Brianna Turang to start the seventh. On Sunday against No. 8 Cal, a powerful Bears offense that had been humming along at 6.4 runs per game tallied just one run. Those two performances, along the 1-0 loss at No. 16 Arizona and Nebraska's 2-0 win over No. 23 Florida State Sunday, suggest that this Husker team, even though it's very young, is ready to compete on the national stage.

At least by the national rankings, Nebraska will never face a test as tough as the one they faced last weekend the rest of the season, and considering three freshmen start every game and as many as five freshmen start. And despite nearly knocking off three of the top teams in the country, the Huskers didn't play their best against any of them. At Arizona, an error put the eventual game-winning run on base, and the Wildcats capitalized one batter later with a double. Oklahoma drew nine walks and was hit by a pitch. Cal needed a flare double, a ground ball on which a freshman failed to look a runner back to second base, and a sacrifice fly to score its lone run of the game. All while the Husker offense built a handful of scoring threats but couldn't convert. In other words, the Huskers were right there against the best, and weren't even playing their best ball.

NCAA regional resumes aren't built on coming pretty close. At some point, the close calls aren't going to good enough. But these close losses are strong indicators that Nebraska will be able to compete in the Big Ten Conference and be in the mix for the conference championship in a Big Ten Conference that looks more competitive by the day.

This weekend at Norman will be the last chance the Huskers have at a big win for a while. After three weeks in which Nebraska has played seven games against ranked foes, the Huskers likely won't see another nationally-ranked foe until the next to last weekend of the year, when Michigan comes to Bowlin Stadium. It's a tough final chance for Nebraska to pick up a big win, but the Huskers have shown that they're almost up to the challenge.

ASA Hall of Fame Stadium
I've been spoiled during my time as play-by-play guy for Husker Softball. Coach Revelle, her staff and the players have treated me with total respect and allowed me to do my job to the best of my ability. I've gotten to cover good teams most years, with the Huskers missing postseason just twice since I started covering them. I covered a conference champion in my first year with the program.

But the biggest way I know I'm spoiled because of having covered Husker Softball is the fact that my first week of games doing play-by-play happened at the home of the national championship of the sport, ASA Hall of Fame Stadium. My first games doing NU softball play-by-play were the 2004 Big 12 Championship. The Huskers were the No. 1 seed after winning the regular season championship, and went to Oklahoma City looking to capture the tournament title. The first matchup was a come-from-behind win over Texas. The second game was a 7-0 defeat of Oklahoma that saw Peaches James throw a perfect game. The third game was a run-rule win over Baylor, and the fourth game was a conference tournament championship win over Missouri.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles
As you'd expect, the rugged winter weather around the Midwest really threw a wrench into the Huskers' traveling plans last weekend. The planned travel schedule was for Nebraska to leave Thursday late morning, fly out of Omaha to Phoenix to Palm Springs, then play its five games at the Mary Nutter Classic, then fly from Palm Springs to Denver to Omaha, to arrive in Omaha late Sunday.

With the weather rapidly worsening Wednesday, the Huskers decided to head to Omaha a night early, to make that if they were able to get out, they could. As the weather system arrived in eastern Nebraska, a slew of flights out of Eppley Airfield were cancelled, though fortunately, Nebraska flight to Phoenix wasn't when the Huskers headed to the airport. By the time the Huskers got on the plane to Phoenix, their flight was the next-to-last flight to get out of Eppley. We sat on the runway for a while while they de-iced the plane, but we were able to get out to Palm Springs as scheduled.

But on Sunday, with another storm system rolling into the Midwest, we knew the trip home would be tough. We found out at some point before the Florida State game that our flight from Denver to Omaha was erased. After playing two games, tentative plans were made to take the flight from Palm Springs to Denver, then bus from Denver to Lincoln, with the Huskers arriving in Lincoln at some point Monday morning. But as we checked in for our flight from Palm Springs to Denver, we found out that flight was cancelled, too.

After some scrambling, plans were made to fly out the next day. But the Huskers would have to board another bus, ride from the Palm Springs Airport to a hotel near LAX, sleep part of the night in a hotel, but board a bus by 4:15 a.m. local time to check in by 4:30 to fly out on the first flight to Minneapolis, then connect from there to Omaha.

Sunday and Monday were taxing--at least for me, though I have to imagine it was even moreso for the people who actually had to play in two games at the front end of the streak. I'm guilty of underselling student-athletes' academic acheivements, but it's weekends like this past one that underscore not only how big a miracle it is that any athlete gets through college, but also how hard each student-athlete is willing to work to succeed academically and how much support is behind each athlete at Nebraska, that they're able to deal with weeks like that, still get done what they need to get done in the classroom, and also compete at a high level.

Weekend Warmup: The Preview
The sites and times have changed for this weekend's action, but the opponents and the numbers of games against each of them have not. The Huskers' weekend starts with a Saturday doubleheader at No. 1 Oklahoma. The Sooners are 15-0 on the season. After beating Nebraska, OU shutout No. 23 Florida State, 6-0. So the Sooners won their five games in Cathedral City by a combined 23-2. In all, 10 of Oklahoma's 15 wins have been shutouts. Keilani Ricketts is the reigning Big 12 Pitcher of the Week after going 3-0 while throwing 23.1 innings of shutout softball. She allowed five hits and three walks while striking out 34. The Sooners are scoring just under seven runs per game while hitting 22 homers in 15 games.

On Sunday, Nebraska heads to Stillwater for a doubleheader against Oklahoma State, which enters the weekend 7-7. The Cowgirls are pitching tremendously well, to a team ERA of 1.35. Kat Espinosa is 2-3 with a 1.04 ERA in 60.2 innings pitched, while Simone Freeman is 5-4 with a 2.23 ERA in 37.2 innings pitched. But the offense has let OSU down this year, scoring just 2.5 runs per game while hitting .224 as a team. Ari Morrison, a returning starter from last year's lineup, has missed the last nine games, while just one OSU starter, Tarah Ettinger, is hitting better than .250.

 That's all for now...we'll talk to you Saturday from Norman...

Go Big Red!

Nate