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B
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The University Daily Kansan
Yesterday in sports
Sports
The Cleveland Browns released offensive tackle Orlando Brown, who hasn't played since he was hit in the eye by a referee's penalty flag late last season.
Inside: Kansas basketball recruit Alan Anderson orally committed late Monday night to Michigan State.
SEE PAGE 2B
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 20, 2000
Inside: Ross Nwachukwu will become interim men's tennis coach following Mark Riley's departure to Pennsylvania.
For comments, contact Melinda Weaver or Jason Walker at 864-4858 or e-mail sports@kansan.com
SEE PAGE 3B
Kytie Thomas, sophomore middle blocker, Molly LaMere, junior setter, and Anna Wheeler, freshman middle blocker, all are aware of Nebraska's presence as a national volleyball powerhouse. LaMere
'Husker dominance poses threat
and Wheeler hail from the suburbs of Ohama, Neb., while Thomas is from western Nebraska. The Kansas volleyball team will play No. 1-ranked Nebraska tonight. Photo by Aaron Lindberg/KANSAN
Kansas teammates aware of Nebraska's No.1 national rank
By Sarah Warren sports@kansan.com Kansan sportswriter
Just north of here is a sports heaven. A place where athletes of all kinds can find national glory. A place of dreams and national championships. A place where sports equal life.
Up north is 'Husker country, a mass of land that cultivates teams so athletically dominant that the state might resemble a condensed Soviet sports system.
Although best known for its football dominance, Nebraska has rich winning traditions in other sports, including volleyball. Nebraska has the No.1 volleyball team in the country, and, just a few weeks into the school year, its 9-0 record already shows the team's dominance.
The Kansas volleyball team, which will face Nebraska at 7 tonight in the Horejsi Family Athletics Center, knows all about Nebraska's dominance. The Jayhawks have a 1-63-2 record against the 'Huskers, with their only win coming in 1977.
In fact, the Cornhuskers have won 22 of 24 Big B/Big 12 Conference championships and have advanced to the NCAA Volleyball Final Four six times, last appearing in 1998.
The 'Husker sports tradition is nothing new to some of Kansas' volleyball players. Middle blockers Anna Wheeler, freshman, and Kylie Thomas, sophomore, and junior setter Molly LaMere all hail from Big Red country.
"I went to a lot of Nebraska volleyball games in high school," Thomas said. "It's always amazing to watch them play."
Wheeler and LaMere are natives of suburban Omaha, Bellevue and Papillion, respectively, while Thomas is from Sutherland, a town in western Nebraska.
"It's a great state for high school volleyball," said coach Ray Bechard. "And they can't all go to Nebraska."
Indeed, the 'Huskers' roster already contains eight in-state players.
WWW.KANSAN.COM/SPORTS
"They have a great reputation and great in-state recruiting." Thomas said. "They really have it all."
None of the Nebraskan Jayhawks
"I was recruited for basketball, but this is the best choice for me," Thomas said. "I couldn't see myself going there."
were recruited by the 'Huskers for volleyball; Thomas was recruited for another sport.
And neither could the other women, they said.
"It would be like high school, only 45 minutes away," LaMere said. "That's not college."
At a lean 5-feet-7, LaMere said she couldn't see herself on the team. Nebraska coach John Cook wants women who have the muscular ability to play Division I directly out of high school, she said.
"I've played club ball with a lot of the
girls on the team," LaMere said. "He likes big, meaty, tall girls. They're not fat, just big."
The Cornhuskers have only two players shorter than 6-foot on their 14-person roster. Their tallest player, Amber Holmquist, an All-America candidate middle blocker, stands 6-feet-4.
According to Bechard, these players' hitting skills are proportional to their height.
"Nebraska's been making a lot of people suffer, the way they've been hitting the ball," Bechard said. "Maybe we should talk to coach Allen to be issued some helmets."
But the Jayhawks aren't trembling with fear for tonight's match. They, in fact, see it as an opportunity.
"We're still trying to earn respect. So just winning a game against them will mean so much," LaMere said. "To them it'll just be an easy match."
Even non-Nebraskan Jayhawks are looking at the positives.
"I think if we just come and play our hearts out, things will happen," said Sarah Rome, freshman outside hitter. "I think if we believe in ourselves we can do it."
Along with the throngs of Big Red supporters, the 'Hawks might find a few Nebraskans in their cheering section.
"Are you kidding?" La Mere said. "My parents wouldn't miss a game like this."
— Edited by Amy Randolph
Knee surgery to sideline soccer team record holder
A knee injury will force the single-season scoring record holder of the Kansas women's soccer program off the field for the rest of the season.
Hilla Rantala, senior forward from Vantaa, Finland, decided to cut the season short because of her injured
knee and to have surgery with the hoping of playing next spring.
Rentala, who had knee surgery five years ago, said her knee started bothering her again during the summer and got worse just before the season b e g a n . Nevertheless, she played the first two games this season with the pain.
Rentals will red-
shirt this year and
play next spring.
"I sat off for two weeks, but I wasn't getting any better," Rantala said. "So I decided to go for surgery."
But she decided that further punishment to the knee wouldn't be a good idea.
"I'm going to be a medical redshirt this year." Rantala said. "So I still have one more year."
But this won't be the end of her soccer career — not even as a Jayhawk.
Ranta's said the knee would be scoped sometime this week and she would have surgery before Christmas.
watching the Jayhawks practice. "They go on road trips. I just have to stay here, do nothing."
Coach Mark Francis said that her absence mainly
"It's terrible. It's really frustrating to see the other people play, not be able to help out," said Rantala.
program. As a first-year Jayhawk, she broke Kansas' single-season scoring record last year with 16 points (5 goals and 6 assists) even though she was injured during the first game and missed the next five contests.
"Hilla is a special player, and it's hard to replace her," he said. "We're going to have to learn to play without her this year."
Rantala transferred from South Alabama last year after recording 27 goals and 27 assists as the all-time leading scorer of the
Rentala's only logged statistic this season came in the form of an assist in the opening game this season, in which she played despite her knee pain.
affected the team offensively.
Edited by Erin McDaniel
Transfers help defensive line fill in gaps left by graduates
By Jason Franchuk
sports@kappa.com
sports@kansan.com
Kansan sportswriter
Ervin Holloman and De'Nard Whitfield are starting to show opponents and fans what they already knew about themselves and the rest of the Kansas' defensive line.
They're good. On Saturday, they were too good.
It is possible to be too quick up front.
If the defensive line, arguably the most impressive Jayhawk corp, had one flaw, it was its inability to stop the draw play. UAB ran the delayed handoff numerous times and gained 252 total rushing yards. Oddly, the Blazers only had 66 yards gained on the ground in the first half before they put on a strong display and forced the game's outcome to rest on a final UAB drive.
"We were getting in there so fast." Holloman said about Kansas' 23-20 win against Alabama-Birmingham. Saturday, "It kind of hurt us at times."
"We knew what we had to do," Whitfield said. "We knew we had to shut them out. We weren't tired. We had no excuses."
The line may sometimes rush too quickly, but coach Terry Allen will forgive them for it. After all the changes in the unit created by graduation, he's just happy to have more than enough bodies to fill the four positions.
"I knew I was going to have a good chance to come here and start," Whitfield said. "Coach showed me the depth chart and showed me almost everyone on it was leaving. From there, it was a pretty easy decision."
That is why Whitfield came to Kansas.
Allen does not like to give out too much praise — especially before the team has faced Big 12 talent.
Kansas defensive back Karseem High (left) tries to tackle UAB's Jegil Dugger while linebacker Chaz Murphy gets ready to assist. The Kansas defense has been one of the Jayhawks' highlights during their first two games this season. Kansas file photo
But Allen likes the numbers that he has up front. Whitfield, from Fort Scott Community College, weighs 240 pounds. Holloman and John Culp, both from Garden City Community College, bring 285 and 270 pounds, respectively. Nate Dwyer, the lone returnee from last year's defensive line, is 300 pounds.
Sports Columnist
"We're able to rotate a lot to make sure we have fresh bodies." Allen said. "We're playing quite a few people up there because you constantly need speed pressure."
This success has been reflected in the team's statistics, and not as much in Holloman's and Whitfield's.
Whitfield and Holloman have certainly been helping out their teammates with statistics. After two games, Kansas has 11 sacks, well on pace to beat last year's 29. This success has been reflected in the team's statistics as seen in Holloman and Whitfield.
Their impact has been felt because of their ability to allow teammates to roam the field in search of plays. When they are rushing at their best, the pair forces the opposing offense to make quick — and sometimes hasty — decisions.
There was some initial apprehension about how the newcomers would adapt to Kansas' system and Division I football, but Dwyer offers the most solid argument for their impact.
"just check the stats," Dwyer said. "They're good."
- Refined by Allison Haden
Seth Jones
sports@kansan.com
Soccer team without home doesn't help attendance
Turns out that SuperTarget Field isn't so super.
The only team seeing any action on the field is a turf maintenance crew. What is supposed to be the home of the Kansas soccer team has become the home of two dump trucks, a Bobcat and a flatbed with a giant drill-like device on it.
So if anyone wants to see my favorite heart breakers in shin guards, they have to load up the car and drive 35 miles to Overland Park and find the field at the corner of Switzer and 135th streets.
There are three huge spots on the field that have been torn up since the bluegrass bit the bullet. With the large scars on the field, the women's soccer team has been forced to play its home games at Blue Valley Northwest High School. The way it looks now, they're hoping to have SuperTarget back to playable by the final two games of the season.
Of course, not many people ever make it out to see the women's soccer team in the first place. Residents of Oliver Hall, who live roughly a football field's length from SuperTarget, choose grilled catfish night in the cafeteria above women's soccer. So moving the team almost an hour out of town doesn't sound like they're doing much to improve the attendance of the student crowd.
Money, I think. Let's play these games at Memorial. Then they can get me in a scholarship box by simply using my KUID. Soccer and Schlitz for Jonesey. Another brilliant idea.
Richard Konzem, associate athletic director, and Darren Cook, director of facilities, took time to talk to me on the scorched piece of land that was SuperTarget Field. Surely, I thought, we could get a better location than Blue Valley for my girls to play.
What about Clinton Sports Complex, I asked them. Nope. Surface is too slow for Division I soccer.
No way. The football field isn't flat, it's crowned, with the highest point right in the middle of the field, and the slopes heading for the sidelines. Plus, it's too narrow, you have all those yard markers, yadda-yadda-dadda. You can't play soccer like that.
So I guess the team is stuck at a high school with a better field than ours, while the football team plays on a surface that has the Kansas City Chiefs impressed.
So what exactly did happen to SuperTarget Field? Well, think back a couple weeks when Lawrence traded weather patterns with the seventh level of Hell. Pretty much every blade of grass in the area died except for the chancellor's front yard. The bluegrass lost its battle with the heat, and to add insult to injury, a sprinkler head broke, flooding and frying a part of the field.
Are there any rules about playing on artificial turf? Cook told me that the only artificial surface acceptable is the same stuff we have at Memorial Stadium, known as AstroPlay.
It wasn't through anyone's fault, really. The Athletics Department did what it could with the $200,000 budget for the field. It just wasn't enough to survive the intense summer we had.
The plan now is to have Bermuda grass on the field by next season. It doesn't stay green as long, but it won't totally die, either.
Sorry, women's soccer team. The only way your team gets much ink these days is because of a pending sexual assault case. And now, we're even making you hit the road for your home games. When it rains, it pours.
Jones is a Mulvane senior in journalism.