Pitchin with Pitch: Husker women close, focus now on high school ball

The NCAA volleyball championship didn’t work out like we had hoped, but the Husker women played pretty well during the last part of the season. 

They took the championship game to 5 five sets against Wisconsin. I thought Nebraska had them on the ropes this time but it didn’t work out that way.

The Huskers were close, but like I was told a long time ago, close is good in horseshoes and hand grenades but not in championships. The Huskers played Wisconsin three times and lost to them all three times. 

They made the Final Four after beating the second-seeded Texas in regionals and beat third-seeded Pittsburg to face fourth-seeded Wisconsin in the championship. 

I think Coach Cook did a great job with a lot of young players, meshed with some outstanding experienced players.

Now, from Husker good to Husker bad.

I did something that I have never done before and that is get up and leave early at a Huskers’ mens basketball game. 

Their game with Michigan was just too hard to watch.

I think the team has some talent. I am pretty sure that the coach is a good one. But I don’t know what the problem is. I have my own ideas but I don’t see them practice every day.

It didn’t get any better against Auburn as they almost hung a 100 on the Huskers. They probably would have had if their coach hadn’t told his team not take a shot at the end of the game.

High school bball talent

I haven’t been to many high school games here in Lincoln yet. I’m putting together some schedules to go watch some of the good players that I have heard about from friends here.

This past week, my son Troy and I traveled to Elmwood-Murdock for the Malcolm/E-M basketball games. 

Got to watch the girls game between two undefeated teams. Malcolm came up on the short end of that one but it was a pretty good game until the last quarter. That’s  when E-M’s 6-5 post, Brenna Schmidt, pretty much took over and scored a bunch of points to get the win. 

In the boy’s game, Malcolm stayed close and in the last quarter did a great job on defense and offense. 

In what I would call a single possession, which wasn’t really, but during the span of a minute or so, the ball never went into the E-M end of the court. The Clippers scored eight points and turned a close game into a winner for the Clippers.

Adding to the night was the fact that I got to see some people who had spent some time in Southwest Nebraska.

Got to visit with Lance Steffen who was at PCS and now is the athletic director and head football coach at Elmwood-Murdock. 

Also visited with Jonathan Hunt who was at PCS and now is at Malcolm and helps as an assistant coach in girls basketball. 

I also got to visit with the officials, two of which were Chuck Lewis and his son. Chuck was a player on the 1990 Scribner-Snyder basketball team that we defeated in the state finals. 

Troy and Chuck get along well but Troy doesn’t let him forget what team won that game. 

The first thing that Chuck said when we had a chance to visit in between games was, “I am not over it yet.” 

That was over 30 years ago and I think he was kidding but I also remember the next year when we came up a couple of points short and lost to Lincoln Christian in the state finals. I haven’t gotten over that one yet either. 

Anyway, the other thing I had to remind Chuck about was the year when we had trouble getting football officials and we ended up getting a crew from Lincoln. I told them I didn’t really want to pay mileage from Lincoln to Grant so we compromised and they did our game. 

When they got to Grant, Chuck was one of the officials and the other guys right away wanted to know where our trophy case was. 

We went in and looked at the trophies and all the officials remarked to Chuck that the championship trophy was a lot bigger than the runner-up one. So maybe he hasn’t got over that yet either.

Another team on my list to see play is Lincoln Christian because they have a 7- foot sophomore. I was told he’s not real smooth yet but he does have 7-foot going for him.

Where we live right now, I get to look out the window at Lincoln Christian High School every day.

Never thought I would ever want to step foot on anything that said Lincoln Christian. I always think about that game in 1991.

That kept us from winning state three years in a row and having an undefeated season.

I may have to put blinders on when I walk by their trophy case so I don’t see any trophy that might have 1991 and a basketball figure on it. 

Lucky for me, I didn’t have to. I was able to watch the Lincoln Christian/Grand Island Central Catholic game on Striv.

Lincoln Christian does have a big kid but he is not real physical yet but does a lot of good things. Grand Island CC just had a better team and won the game.

Of all things, at halftime of the varsity game they had a tribute to the 1991 state championship boys team. I am kind of glad I didn’t go.

I know who they defeated to win that one and as I mentioned earlier, I still have a tough time with that game. But it would have been interesting to see some of the players that came back.

Continued good luck to the Plainsmen girls and boys teams. I am glad for Striv as it allows me to feel at home with the Plainsmen .