Huskers Host Oklahoma State in Final Big 12 Series

The 16th-ranked Nebraska softball team wraps up the 2011 regular season by hosting Oklahoma State this weekend, in its final two league games as a member of the Big 12 Conference. The Huskers open the series with the 20th-ranked Cowgirls on Saturday at 4:30 p.m., before concluding the regular season on Sunday at Noon.
Fans can purchase tickets for both games by visiting the Bowlin Stadium ticket office on game day, located at the main entrance behind home plate, by calling 1-800-8-BIG-RED or by visiting Huskers.com. Saturday’s game will be televised live in the state of Nebraska on NET-1 and NET-HD. Larry Punteney will call the action for the television broadcast, while former Husker Amanda Duran will provide color commentary.
Sunday’s game can be heard on the radio in Lincoln on B107.3 FM, with veteran softball play-by-play announcer Nate Rohr calling all of the action. Fans can also follow all of this weekend’s action online, as Huskers.com will provide free audio and video streams of both games.
Also on Saturday, Nebraska’s senior class will be honored following the game. Julie Brechtel and Heidi Foland make up the final class to play its entire career in the Big 12 Conference, as classmate Tori Tyson has been forced to miss her final year due to injury. Both Brechtel and Foland have started more than 200 games in their careers. After joining the program in 2008 and seeing Nebraska miss the postseason for the first time in 13 years, the classmates have made it their mission to return the tradition-rich Husker softball program to the postseason.
They have done just that, as Nebraska is expected to make its third straight NCAA Tournament appearance this season when the bracket is announced live on Sunday at 9 p.m. (Central) on ESPNU. Not only have the seniors been instrumental in the Huskers annually returning to postseason play, Brechtel and Foland have also achieved the first top-25 ranking of their careers this season, while also helping Nebraska rise to its highest in-season ranking since 2003 (11th).
Despite the strides that have been made over the past four seasons, the senior class and the rest of the 2011 Huskers hope there is plenty more success to come yet this season. Nebraska learns its NCAA Tournament destination on Sunday night, and will then look to win an NCAA Regional for the first time since the NCAA adopted the regional-super regional format beginning with the 2005 season. With a 37-12 overall record and a top-25 ranking in the official NCAA RPI, the Huskers are a near-lock to be awarded an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
NU would like to enter postseason play with momentum. On that note, the Huskers swept a home-and-home series this week with Iowa State to snap a season-high three-game losing streak. This weekend, Nebraska will get a taste of the postseason during its top-20 battle with Oklahoma State. The Huskers faced a similar challenge last weekend, when Nebraska lost back-to-back games in the bottom of the seventh inning at No. 20 Baylor.
Scouting the Oklahoma State Cowgirls (37-15 Overall, 8-8 Big 12)
Oklahoma State enters this weekend with a 37-15 overall record and an 8-8 mark in Big 12 play. The Cowgirls are just ahead of NU in sixth place in the league standings. Oklahoma State has lost four straight games - all to ranked opponents - and the losing streak immediately followed a three-game winning streak against ranked foes. OSU is 6-7 on the road, including a 3-4 mark in Big 12 action.

Offensively, Oklahoma State is batting .295 as a team and averaging 5.1 runs per game. Four Cowgirls are hitting better than .300, led by Alysia Hamilton. Hamilton is batting .392 with 13 doubles, five home runs and 33 RBIs. Maria Gearhart is next with a .370 average, while she has been hit by 17 pitches this season to reach base at a team-best .482 clip. Gearhart has also stolen 33 bases in 35 attempts this season. Chelsea Garcia leads the team with 11 home runs and 49 RBIs to complement a .340 average. Ari Morrison is batting .336, while Julie Ward is hitting .314 with 10 doubles, 11 homers and 41 RBIs.

Defensively, Oklahoma State owns the seventh-best fielding percentage in the nation while allowing an average of 2.5 runs per game and posting a staff ERA of 2.19. In Big 12 play, the Cowgirl defense has been tremendous, committing the fewest errors in the league, posting the best fielding percentage and turning seven double plays in 16 games. In the circle, Kat Espinosa and Simone Freeman have been OSU’s primary pitchers. Espinosa is 20-6 on the year with a 2.32 ERA and 131 strikeouts in 169.0 innings. Opponents are hitting only .193 against her, but she has given up the third-most home runs of any pitcher in the Big 12 (17). Freeman, a freshman from Australia, is 9-7 with a 2.24 ERA and 120 strikeouts in 106.1 innings. Morgan Hawkins (6-0, 1.21 ERA in 40.1 IP) and left-hander Sarah Odom (2-2, 2.57 ERA in 32.2 IP) round out the Cowgirl staff.   

Husker History vs. Oklahoma State
Oklahoma State leads the all-time series with Nebraska, 46-42. The Huskers evened the all-time series at 41-41 by sweeping the season series in 2007, but since then, the Cowgirls have won five of the last six meetings. NU owns a 17-13 edge in the series in Lincoln, but the series is tied 4-4 since Bowlin Stadium opened in 2002. Five of the eight all-time meetings at Bowlin Stadium have been decided by two runs or less. Nebraska has been shut out in each of its last three games against Oklahoma State dating back to 2009, tying for the longest shutout streak against a conference opponent in Husker history. Rhonda Revelle is 22-29 in her career against the Cowgirls, including a 3-5 mark against fifth-year Oklahoma State Head Coach Rich Wieligman.

Last year, Oklahoma State swept the season series in Stillwater, shutting out the Huskers in both games. In game one, Ashley Hagemann fired a complete-game four-hitter and allowed two earned runs in a 4-0 loss. After giving up three runs in the first inning on a Julie Ward three-run homer, Hagemann held the 11th-ranked Cowgirls to one run the rest of the way. But the Husker offense could not get on track, as Anna Whiddon took a no-hitter into the seventh inning before Julie Brechtel and Brooke Thomason recorded back-to-back singles on the first two pitches of the inning to account for NU’s lone two hits. The next day, Kat Espinosa fired a three-hit shutout for OSU, while the Cowgirl offense scored six runs in the second inning and two more in the fourth in a 8-0 five-inning win.

Brechtel had one of Nebraska’s three hits in the game two loss, as she is the only Husker who has enjoyed even moderate success in her career against Oklahoma State. Brechtel is 4-for-15 (.267) with a home run, a run scored and two RBIs in six career games against the Cowgirls, while the rest of the Husker lineup is a combined 4-for-43 (.093) with no extra-base hits or RBIs and only one run scored against Oklahoma State.

Quick Hitters
The information below provides a quick glimpse of a few statistics and brief notes of interest as No. 16 Nebraska plays its final Big 12 Conference series this weekend against No. 20 Oklahoma State at Bowlin Stadium:

• The Huskers are 162-107 (.602) all-time in the month of May.
• Ten of Nebraska’s 12 losses this season have come to teams ranked in the top 30 of the NCAA RPI.
• Heidi Foland enters this weekend with 24 career home runs, one shy of 10th place on the Nebraska career chart.
• Taylor Edwards enters play this weekend with 61 RBIs this season in only 49 games. The Big 12 record for most RBIs by a freshman is 62 by All-Americans Megan May and Jessica Shults last season.
• Ashley Hagemann enters this week with 292 strikeouts this season. She needs only eight strikeouts to post the fourth 300-strikeout season in school history. Hagemann would be only the third Nebraska pitcher to strike out 300 batters in a season. She also needs only 13 strikeouts to post the most strikeouts ever by a Husker junior.
• Hagemann has not allowed a first-inning run all season. She has appeared in the first inning 33 times this season and has allowed no runs and only 12 hits, while striking out 46 in 33.0 innings. Overall, Hagemann has not allowed a first-inning run in her last 36 games dating back to last season.
• Thursday’s game with Iowa State marked Rhonda Revelle’s 1,000th game as Nebraska’s head coach.
• Freshman twins Tatum and Taylor Edwards have hit 14 and 17 home runs this season, respectively. Prior to this year, no Husker freshman had ever hit 14 home runs in a season.
• Nebraska is 6-9 against ranked teams this season, as after this weekend, the Huskers will have played exactly one-third of their schedule against top-25 opponents (17 of 51 games).
• Nebraska has lost three straight to ranked teams since beating No. 8 Missouri on April 22.

Oh So Close
Nebraska is 37-12 this season and despite the impressive record, the Huskers have had a chance to turn several losses into victories, especially during Big 12 Conference play. Of Nebraska’s 12 losses this season, five have been by a single run. The Huskers have also lost five games when they either led or were tied in the seventh inning. Nebraska is just 1-7 this season when trailing after the fifth inning, and only 2-4 when the game is tied after five innings of play. Below is a look at seven Big 12 losses that could have been wins:

• at No. 7 Oklahoma (March 27): Nebraska trailed 2-1 after five innings of play before Oklahoma scored four times in the sixth inning. The Huskers then scored twice in the seventh and left the bases loaded in a 6-3 loss.
• vs. No. 5 Texas (April 9): The game was scoreless in the seventh inning before a fly ball to the warning track in center field bounced out of Nikki Haget’s glove and over the fence for a solo home run in the Longhorns’ 1-0 win.
• vs. No. 5 Texas (April 10): Nebraska led 3-1 with two outs in the seventh inning, before Texas tied the game with a two-run homer. The Longhorns won the game in the eighth, 4-3, when Amy Hooks stole home on a botched squeeze attempt.
• vs. No. 8 Missouri (April 23): Nebraska trailed 1-0 in the top of the seventh inning before allowing Missouri to score three crucial insurance runs. The Huskers scored once in the bottom of the seventh and brought the tying run to the plate before losing 4-1.
• vs. Texas Tech (May 1): Nebraska stranded seven runners and hit into two double plays through the first six innings, but still found themselves in a scoreless tie with Texas Tech heading into the seventh inning. But the Red Raiders scored five runs in the seventh inning, despite only two balls leaving the infield, to win 5-0.
• at No. 20 Baylor (May 7): Nebraska broke a scoreless tie in the top of the seventh inning with a one-out RBI double. A second runner was thrown out at home on the play, before Baylor used an RBI single and a Husker error to rally for a 2-1 walk-off win in the bottom of the seventh inning.
• at No. 20 Baylor (May 8): In another scoreless game, Nebraska stranded runners at second and third in the top of the seventh inning, before Baylor used a bases-loaded sacrifice fly to earn a 1-0 walk-off win.

Hagemann’s Junior Season Among Best in School History
Junior right-hander Ashley Hagemann is 2-0 this week, as she has improved her season record to 27-11. With her win at Iowa State on Thursday, Hagemann notched her 27th victory, the most ever by a Husker junior. The previous record was 26 wins by Ashley DeBuhr in 2006. DeBuhr also holds the record for most strikeouts by a Husker junior with 304, a mark Hagemann is challenging with 292 strikeouts this season. Hagemann has also tossed 26 complete games this season, one shy of the junior record held by All-Americans Jenny Voss (1999) and Peaches James (2003).

Huskers Homering Often in Big 12 Play
Nebraska has hit 17 home runs in Big 12 play this season, its highest total since 2000 and tied for the second-highest total in NU history, regardless of conference affiliation (Big Eight or Big 12). Included in that total is a five-homer game against Texas Tech and a four-homer game against Iowa State. The Huskers had hit four home runs in a conference game only once in school history entering this year. The five homers against Texas Tech were the most NU has ever hit in a conference game.
A Look Back at the Big 12
This weekend’s series with Oklahoma State marks Nebraska’s final Big 12 Conference games. Softball was the first sport to compete in the newly formed Big 12, with its first season of competition taking place in the spring of 1996, before the conference’s inaugural year in 1996-97. The Husker softball program has spent the past 15 seasons as a member of the Big 12 Conference. During its time as a member of the league, Nebraska has enjoyed several highlights, including:

• Nebraska owns an all-time Big 12 record of 171-106. The Huskers rank second in Big 12 victories behind Oklahoma and third in winning percentage (.617) behind the Sooners and Texas.
• Nebraska has won three Big 12 regular-season titles, a total that ranks third in the league behind Oklahoma and Texas.
• Nebraska won three Big 12 tournament titles in the 14 years the tournament existed, a total that ranked third in the conference behind Oklahoma and Texas.
• In 1998, Nebraska went a perfect 16-0 to capture the Big 12 regular-season title and then went 4-0 en route to the winning the conference tournament. That team is still the only team in Big 12 history to go through a conference season undefeated, a noticeable accomplishment as the league sent three teams to the Women’s College World Series that season.
• The Huskers did not have a losing Big 12 record until the 2008 season, the league’s 13th year of existence. In the first 11 years of the conference, every Big 12 team except NU had at least one losing conference season.