It's hard to believe after a disappointing season that saw the Husker Softball team start 0-7 in conference play, and ultimately finish 4-14 (tied for 9th) and 21-27 overall, but the Huskers have got hot at the right time.  The Huskers will play will play Texas A&M Sunday for the Big XII Championship and an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament Regionals.

The 10th-seeded Huskers reached the championship game after coming back to beat Kansas 4-3 on Friday, then held off #7 and 2nd-seed Oklahoma 6-5 Saturday morning, and finally knocked off 6th-seeded Texas Tech 6-1 Saturday afternoon.
Sunday's championship game against A&M is set for a noon first pitch, to be aired live on FSN.  The Aggies were the regular-season Big XII Champions, and swept Nebraska 6-0 and 6-3 two weeks ago in Lincoln.

Every year at some time, athletic departments around the nation release their budgets, and everyone has to toss out their little rant about how all these sports lose money and that we need to stop the bleeding and cut all the revenue-eating sports.  So, while I had planned on initially devoting this space to the NCAA bids that went out this week, and presenting the Big 12 Composite Standings I’ve been working on (they’ll be here next time – Nebraska’s third, by the way), I was driving to work today and heard 1620 the Zone’s Unsportsmanlike Conduct bringing up the same argument after the Omaha World-Herald published the annual sports profit/loss budget this weekend.

Sorry for the late post this week.  I had a really busy weekend, and didn't have a chance to look over the week's results and previews.

This time of year is when the regular seasons for most spring sports wrap up, with finals and the summer approaching.  Softball and Baseball, of course, still play on into the summer, and track & field may keep running all the way to the Olympic trials, but most sports are riding into conference and national championships.

Of course, with the year ending, so too comes the end-of-the-year banquet, where the Male & Female Student Athlete of the Year awards are handed out.  This year, Sarah Pavan (volleyball) won the award for the women, while Stephen Tetrault (gymnastics) won the award for the men.  The women's cross country team and men's tennis team won the Herman Awards for top team GPAs.

This weekend was a big one for Husker sports, with the top-ranked Husker bowlers and the 15th-ranked women’s gymnastics team participating in NCAA Championship events.  It was a mix of excitement and disappointment, as seasons come to their end.

The Husker Bowling team started the NCAA Championships with a strong showing on Thursday, leading qualifying and taking the top seed into Friday’s double-elimination rounds.  However, Friday’s rounds did not go as planned, with the Huskers dropping their first best-of-seven Baker-style match to Central Missouri, 4 games to one, followed up by a four-game sweep loss to Minnesota State-Mankato.  Maryland-Eastern Shore went on to win to the championship Saturday night.

Husker sophomore guard Jay-R Strowbridge ended speculation today by announcing his intention to transfer, leaving the Husker men's basketball team with at least one open scholarship for the 2008 late signing period.

Strowbridge says that he is transferring to be closer to home (Ardmore, AL).  Apparently, Jay-R lost a cousin over Christmas break, and has had a rough time since returning to Lincoln.

Strowbridge is the 8th player to leave the program in Doc Sadler's 2 years, according to the Journal-Star.  That sounds concerning at first, but that number includes Roburt Sallie (who failed to qualify initially), Jamel White (dismissed for disciplinary reasons), Jeremy Barr (the USC transfer who never actually suited up), and a number of Collier recruits who were not likely to get much playing time under Doc.  Hopefully, the attrition is more or less over.

Today's scheduled game between Nebraska and Iowa has been cancelled due to rain and cold temperatures in Iowa City.  The game will not be rescheduled.  It is the second mid-week game in a row that has been cancelled or rescheduled for the Huskers.

I guess this is just a fact of life when you play baseball in the northern latitudes.  Unfortunately, with the short time to play a lot of games, it's really hard to reschedule a cancelled game, especially with the costs associated with travelling and everything.  At least with the Creighton game last week, there's no major travel issues & we'll be playing them 2 more times this year (so we could at least make up a double header).

Here's hoping for better weather from here on out.

Welcome back to this week’s installment of Corn Kernels, the weekly column previewing & reviewing the week in the low-profile Husker sports.  (A big thank-you to Corn Blight for suggesting the name!)  There’s some big stuff set for this week, with the NCAA Bowling championships and Women’s Gymnastics regionals set for this weekend, so let’s get going.

First off, the Kernels would like to congratulate Husker Wrestling Coach Mark Manning for being named the Big XII Coach of the Year.  This year, the Husker wrestlers had their best season in years, finishing second in the conference championships (their highest finish ever) and fourth at the NCAA championships (their highest finish in 15 years), and finishing 2nd at the National Duals in January.  The Huskers also placed 5 wrestlers as All-Americans (meaning they placed at the NCAA championships), all of whom return next season.  The Huskers, losing only one senior, look poised for even bigger things in 2009.

Nebraska's game scheduled for tonight in Omaha against Creighton has been postponed until Wednesaday April 23 due to the prospect of miserably cold weather.  Game time forecast calls for temperatures dropping into the 30s.

For more information, see the official announcement.

This weekend's home series with Texas Tech will proceed as scheduled.

This is just a little experiment I'm trying at bringing a little bit of a look at the "other" Husker sports, as Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Volleyball tend to dominate Corn Nation.  However, there are hundreds of other excellent Husker athletes that deserve some props, so over time, I hope that I can turn this into a regular column on here.  Of course, my busy schedule has kept me from learning all I would like about the smaller sports thus far, I'm working as hard as I can to catch up.

For the early installments, I thought I'd start simple by just previewing what's going on in the rest of the Husker sports world this week.

If you have any suggestions for this "small sports" column (including a name), helpful criticisms, or think it's a waste of bytes and want me to stop, please drop a comment.

The Husker Women's Basketball team lost a heartbreaker last night, 76-64, to fifth-rankend and top-seeded Maryland in College Park.  The Huskers battled back from a 15-point deficit in the first half with a 16-2 run to end the half down only one.  In the second half, Nebraska managed to battle with Maryland for a while, tying the game at 45 before the Terps went on a quick 8-point burst to take the lead for good.  The Huskers battled the rest of the way, but couldn't get enough of a run to close the gap.

For game highlights and a full recap, see ESPN's game recap.

Though they lost tonight, they can hold their heads high for not backing down on the road against a team that features four starters from the Terps' 2006 National Championship squad.  The future looks bright as well, with all but Husker back, including All-Big XII forward Kelsey Griffin.

Nebraska (20-12) at Mississippi (22-10)
Game Time: 8:00 PM CDT
TV: ESPNU (No webcast)
Radio: Husker Sports Network (Listen online)
Opponent's Blogs: Strands of Crepe Paper, Parrish Alford
All-time Series: Tied 1-1 (Nebraska won in Lincoln in 1977, Ole Miss in Oxford in 1978)

The Husker meet the Ole Miss Rebels for the first time in 30 years in tonight's NIT second round game in Oxford, MS.  The winner advances to play the winner of tonight's game between UAB and Virginia Tech for a chance to advance to the NIT Final Four in New York.

Big-12 wise, the only big shakeup came with Oklahoma State dropping from first to third, with Missouri and Nebraska both moving up.  The Tigers and the Huskers are white hot right now.  Missouri swept a home series vs. Baylor in convincing fashion, while Nebraska nearly swept a home series vs. Oklahoma.  Nebraska won the first two games.  The third game ended in a rare tie.  On Sunday all games must be completed by 5PM in order to students to get back to their campuses for Monday classes.  The final OU-NU game was called after ten innings with the two teams tied 9-9.