THIS WEEK IN SPORTS with Justin Hesser A Look At This Week In Nebraska Sports By Justin Hesser June 3, 2002 Baseball One year after the Nebraska Baseball team qualified for its first College World Series, they are in position to make it two in a row. The Huskers advanced to a Super Regional Sunday with a 14-3 win over Southwest Missouri State. Jeff Leise got things started on Sundays win over SMS with a leadoff home run and continued hitting strong finishing, with a career high four hits. Matt Hopper also helped the Huskers 17-hit attack with his three-run homer that broke open the game during the sixth inning. The Huskers scored in each of the final six innings. The Huskers received hitting help from Joe Simokaitis and Will Bolt who were 3-5 and 2-4 on the day respectively. Pitcher Steve Hale got the win after relieving Jamie Rodrigue in the fourth. Hale allowed only two runs and four hits. In their second game, Star pitcher Shane Komine pitched his second complete game of the year and recorded 12 strikeouts to lead the Huskers in the 9-1 win over Marist on Saturday. On Friday the Huskers downed Wisconsin-Milwaukee 7-2 with 6.2 innings of shutout relief from Brian Duensing. The Huskers will face Richmond in Lincoln in a best of three series Super Regional this weekend. The attendance figures helped Nebraska in landing a super regional game, with school record crowds of 6,917 during Sunday’s championship game and 25,677 fans attending all six sessions. Football The final design of next year’s football uniforms was released after the team voted on and Head Coach Frank Solich approved the changes. The home uniforms will continue to be red jerseys and white pants, with the only difference being the white pinstripe that runs down the side of the jersey. The biggest change is that the Huskers will now wear white pants on the road instead of red. The white road jerseys have a red spandex insert running down the side of them. Head Coach Solich said there would be no official unveiling and seemed to have trouble understanding why the new uniforms seemed to be such a big issue among fans. He simply stated that the big issue is how the players wearing the uniforms play and not how they look. Track The NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships wrapped up on Saturday with the Nebraska women placing ninth and the men 19th. The Huskers had team members competing in both the field finals and two running finals on Saturday. Freshman Becky Breisch placed eighth in the shot put with a throw of 53-11. Sophomore Carl Meyerscough also placed eighth in the shot put with a throw of 62-91/2, after passing on his last three attempts due to a strained pectoral muscle. Junior Krisztina Kovesi placed 11th in the triple jump and Kyle Odvody placed 16th in the high jump. In running events, Shelly-Ann Brown placed fifth in the 100-meter hurdles and earned the All-American honors with her time of 13.38 seconds. Derek Zachary placed ninth with a time of 13.98 in the 110-meter hurdles. Elsewhere, Alice Schmidt a graduate of Elkhorn High School in Nebraska won the gold medal in the 800-meter with the University of North Carolina. Athlete Of The Week Catcher Jed Morris was named 2002 Big 12 Conference Player of the Year this past week. Morris entered this weeks Regional with some impressive numbers on the season. He carries a .376 batting average, with 20 home runs and 77 RBI’s, with both home runs and RBI’s topping the conference. Last year at Nebraska he started in 42 games and was named on the All-Big 12 second team. During the Lincoln Regional last year he batted .400 and most notably tied the Rutgers game at ten with his impressive two-out, two-run double in the top of the ninth. Morris is a native of Seabrook, Texas and a transfer to Nebraska from Tyler Junior College. Morris had an outstanding high school career as a four-time letter winner. He received All-State honors during his senior year with a .427 batting average, six home runs, and 33 RBI’s. Morris was struck out only six times as a senior. Final Thought ~ I only watched the championship game of this weekends regional, but that was enough to tell that Nebraska is playing some great ball. It looks like Nebraska could be on its way to its second straight CWS appearance. The Huskers are hitting great and playing superb defense. The only down side to the championship game was their four errors. It should be an almost clear-cut decision for the NCAA on where to host the Super Regional. The fans in Lincoln are coming out to the games, even non-Husker games, which should give Nebraska an edge. ~ I read the article that appeared on the Omaha World Heralds website about the new football uniforms and then spent some time reading the comments that readers posted about the story. I tend to agree that the uniforms are a mere housekeeping procedure and that it’s being taken a little too seriously by some of the fans. As one can easily tell by the number of comments posted after the story. I do agree with the teams’ decision to leave the helmet as is. To me the helmet is a symbol of a tradition. Justin Hesser is a recent high school graduate and will soon be off to an out-of-state university. Look for "This Week In Sports" Mondays on MissingNebraska.com. Post Feedback