Lincoln Journal Star from Lincoln, Nebraska • 17

llentgen pitches another complete game 4C Lincoln Journal Star Saturday, July 12, 1997 Vogel TiiiV ZSSSfSmt- 7 i. i inuiBiia.iiig i.injii iiiiiniiiiiiniiHinnaaniiiiwnuii iimnaiii -Mi- jJtfc CjL r- l'r iJ" T-r. j. I JOURNAL STAR LIBRARY A The Lincoln Stars were a big hit in their inaugural season. The hockey team's fans pay more for their tickets for games at the Ice Box than fans of any other team in the United States Hockey League.

High ticket prices buy Stars' fans more than hockey BY MARK DEROW1TSCH Lincoln Journal Star want to put on a show that's better than the rest of the teams in the league this year," Zoucha said. "I don't know if you're comparing oranges and oranges when you compare ticket prices because we put on a much better show." Lincoln's hockey fans aren't fazed by the high cost of tickets. Last season, the Stars sold out all 36 games, including seven during the USHL playoffs, at the Ice Box, and the sellout streak appears to be in little danger of ending. Of the 3,250 seats the Stars set aside for 1997-98 season ticket sales, fewer than 40 were not renewed. Zoucha doesn't expect to have problems selling all the general admission seats for 34 home games this season because the Stars concentrate on more than hockey.

"For now, Lincoln fans want our overall entertainment value instead of only a hockey game," he said. "Sure, you're going to have some diehards who would sit in a 30-degree rink to watch hockey no matter what, but we need to appeal to a wider audience in order to fill the place. "I have more people come up to me and say what a good time it is than people who tell me what a great game it is." Of the 12 USHL teams, only three teams raised ticket prices for the 1997-98 season. Green Bay, which joined the league as an expansion team in 1994, raised prices this season for the first time in franchise history. The most expensive seat will be $9, up $1 from last season.

The Gamblers, who have a large following at the Brown County Arena, won the Junior A National Tournament the last two seasons. "We want to keep prices affordable for everyone," said Green Bay Vice President John Cawley. "We had some More on STARS, Page 5C Next time you fork out money to watch the Lincoln Stars, try to enjoy more than the hockey game. You're paying a lot for it. The Ice Box ambiance, according to Stars management, is why Lincoln has by far the highest ticket prices in the United States Hockey League.

For the second straight season, or as long as Lincoln will have had a Junior A team, Stars fans will shell out the most money to watch USHL hockey, according to a survey of league ticket prices conducted by the Lincoln Journal Star. Starting this fall, Stars tickets will cost $12 for rinkside and $10 for mezzanine and general admission seating. While cost of the rinkside and mezzanine seats remained the same as last year, the Stars decided to raise prices for 430 general admission seats in the corners from $9 to $10 and 560 seats on the stage from $8 to $10. In other words, the cheapest ticket to the Stars' games -cost more than the most expensive ticket for all the other 11 USHL teams. In fact, only three USHL teams come close to charging as much as $10 for admission.

The top ticket at Omaha, Green Bay and Des Moines costs $9. But Stars Ticket Manager Steve Zoucha insists Ice Box patrons are treated to an impressive evening of entertainment, which includes rock music played by a disc jockey moonlighting as a rink announcer, a light show, contests and special appearances by the likes of the Blues Brothers and Elvis impersonators. Good hockey is also a draw, of course. "We try to put on more than just a hockey game we I aha t1o 7 Hoio 9 00 $1 0 fnftjy "West $9-00 60 0fc 8-00 arBo-Moo $B-00 5700 7 70 S'-'J Jfia, 7-60 $7-oo 500 Golfer Lopez within reach of her first U.S. Open title East Coast hypocrisy is alive, well How best to put it? Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones What goes around conies around A boomerang always comes back.

Evidently, Boston doesn't seem to have grasped these ideas. It was about two years ago that Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy led the charge to crucify Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne for reinstating Lawrence Phillips with two regular-season games to play for an assault of an ex-girlfriend. Osborne said at the time that kicking Phillips off the team would be wrong because football and school were all Phillips had for "structure" in his life and that it would detrimental to Phillips to remove that "structure." Then in April 1996, a day after the NFL draft ended, the Globe again lashed out at a Husker, this time blasting the New England Patriots for drafting Christian Peter, a defensive tackle who had been put on probation for illegally touching a former Miss Nebraska and for grabbing another woman by her throat at a booster club banquei 5o Kearney. For two more days, the Globe kept the flame of righteousness burning bright. Three days after Peter was drafted, the Patriots bowed to public pressure and renounced their rights to the ex-Husker, saying they were unaware of his criminal record even though the NFL had passed that information on to all 30 teams prior to the draft Chickens coming home When Nebraskans twice leaped to the defense of their Huskers, they were perceived as being myopic and ignorant and unwilling to admit that there was something sinister within their esteemed football program.

But this past month, the chickens finally came home to roost in Boston. While the Red Sox have been dealing with domestic abuse charges against one of their players, Wilfredo Cordero, Boston media and fans have barely uttered a peep. In June, Cordero was arrested outside his Cambridge, apartment after admitting to a police officer that he'd hit his wife with a cordless telephone, the same phone she used to call 911. Keeping with the prevailing wisdom about athletes and spousal abuse, the Red Sox suspended Cordero, put him on waivers to see what his trade value might be and ordered him to undergo counseling, calling this a one-time occurrence. Then came the revelations that Red Sox General Manager Dan Duquette had known of at least two other incidents of domestic abuse involving Cordero when both were employed by the Montreal Expos.

Duquette later admitted that Cordero had been in counseling for those attacks. This week ESPN aired an interview with Cordero in which the leftfielder not only denied that anything had even happened incident? There was no but flashed a Cheshire cat-like smile and sat smugly as he stroked the hair on his child's head. Where's the outrage now? The calls for anyone's head have been few and muffled. The criticism from the Globe has come three weeks after the "incident" and has been limited to a Shaugnessy column saying he won't ever cheer for a wife beater and to a column from Bob Ryan, who spinned Cordero's denials by suggesting attorneys told him what to say. Most of the media in Boston and around baseball have said that without baseball Cordero would be missing a needed "structure" in his life and that the welfare of his wife and child and himself could be endangered.

Nobody lifted a finger to point it at the media when this was said, nor did anyone write columns noting the irony considering it's the same thing Osborne said about Phillips. The point is this, Boston and the Globe were the first to rail against the attitude of Nebraskans and Nebraska media for a perceived "soft" approach to Phillips' and Peter's legal troubles. But when even worse things happen in their backyard, Bostonians showed that softness is always relative. shots behind first-round leader Lise-lotte Neumann, had a bogey-free round on the par-71, Witch Hollow course at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Gub and was at 6-under 136 halfway through the biggest event in women's golf. But it was Lopez who stole the spotlight with a 5-under 137, tied with Neumann and Kelly Robbins one shot out of the lead.

Juli Inkster matched Nicholas' 66 Friday and was tied with Deb Richard at 4-under 138. Dawn Coe-Jones, with a 4-under 31 on the back nine, shot a 3-under 67 and was three back at 139. Annika Sorenstam, failing miserably in her bid to become the first woman to win three consecutive U.S. Opens, ended her two-round nightmare at 8-over 150. She missed the cut for the first time since the Jamie Farr Kroger Classic in 1994, a span of 62 tournaments.

She followed her 6-over 77 Thursday with a 2-over 73 Friday. Ironically, she ended her round with a birdie. The field was cut to the low 60 scores for the final two rounds today and Sunday. Scores of 69 Thursday and 68 Friday gave Lopez her lowest 36-hole score in her 21 U.S. Opens.

She has finished second in the event three times, most recently in 1989. "I don't feel that I have to win a U.S. Open, but I would more than anything love to win the U.S. Open," Lopez said. "There's just something about winning the U.S.

Open. I want to experience it. I want to walk up on the 18th green on Sunday and have a five-shot lead and be winning it. And I just can't even imagine what it would feel like." At age 40, Lopez is enjoying a career renaissance. She ended a four-year drought earlier this year by winning the Chick-Fil-A Charity tournament, her 48th career victory.

At the beginning of 1996, she had thought about giving up the sport. "I really was so bored with the way I was playing and I wasn't enjoying it," she said. And she was overweight. "The first tournament of the year, I tried on my pair of size 14 shorts. I couldn't get into them," Lopez said.

"And that really made me mad. I said, 'I've had enough. I've got to do She began working out and watching her diet She's lost 39 pounds and says she is feeling better than she has in years. "I feel like my game is the best it's been at a U.S. Open for a while," Lopez said.

"I'm riding on confidence and the way that I'm swinging right now." Lopez had an erratic round before her late charge Friday, missing a More on OPEN, Page 5C NORTH PLAINS, Ore. (AP) -As she walked onto the 18th green, the cheers echoed across the rural countryside. "Nancy! Nancy!" There is no doubt who is the crowd favorite in the U.S. Women's Open, and at the halfway point, Nancy Lopez is just one shot off the lead. The only glaring blank spot on her Hall of Fame resume, a U.S.

Women's Open championship, is well within her reach. England's Alison Nicholas shot a 5-under-par 66 Friday to take the second-round lead with Lopez close behind, thanks to birdies on the final three holes. Nicholas, who began the day five Schmutte no longer a candidate Former Nebraska Wesleyan Coach Jerry Schmutte withdrew Friday as a candidate for the vacant men's basketball coaching job at Fort Hays State. Schmutte, who has coached at Morningside College for the pasi seven seasons, interviewed for the post Thursday, the day before he told officials at Fort Hays State he Brigade clinches division title BY NATE ODGAARD Lincoln Journal Star V- 3 I "It's a fantastic achievement to win it in our first season," Brigade Coach Brett Mosen said. "The players were up for the game all week." Lincoln started the game red-hot, as the Flames and goalkeeper Tom Zawislan felt the heat in the first 10 minutes of the game.

After two spectacular saves by Zawislan, Lincoln midfielder Steve Kraemer took a pass from Chris Brady and headed it in to go ahead 1-0. Omaha's offense was far less threatening in the first half and had few scoring opportunities. But in the 38th minute, Omaha midfielder Jamie Harris outleaped the Brigade defense and headed the ball past a diving Chuck Browder to tie the game 1-1. In the second half, both teams continually traded scoring opportunities but came up empty. The intrastate rivals remained tied after 90 minutes of regulation play and 15 minutes of sudden-death overtime.

In the shootout, Lincoln bolted to a 2-0 lead on goals by Johnnie Anderson and Keith DiFini, while Browder deflected the Flames' first two attempts. "I knew I had to step up big, and I was praying I would do a good job," Browder said. "I waited for them to make their first move, and then I would cut off the angle and go from there." Mosen said the victory was especially sweet because of the heated rivalry between the teams. Lincoln won the season series 3-1. I "We took it to them.

We beat them with skill and we deserved it," her said. "We took a lot of stuff from Omaha and we wanted to show" them." It was a familiar site with a familiar feel to it Friday night in Lincoln, with red and white jerseys on a football field. Though the Lincoln Brigade-Omaha Flames soccer game didn't draw quite the attention the Nebraska-Oklahoma football games of years past did, the battle on the field was just as intense and the atmos- phere in the stands was just as electrifying. In front of 900 fans, the Brigade outscored Omaha 3-2 in a shootout at Seacrest Field to clinch the South Central Division title of the Premier Developmental Soccer League in its first year. Lincoln, which improved to 11-4 in the division and 13-6-1 overall, holds a three-game lead over second-place Omaha (8-7) with one regular-season game remaining.

GAIL FOLDALmcdn Journal Star A Lincoln's Steve Kraemer runs downfield with his shirt over his bead a goal for the Brigade during Friday's match against Omaha at Seacrest Field. was no longer interested in the position. "I owed it to. myself profes- sionally to look at their situa-' tioh," Schmutte said. "They have been perhaps the premier program at our level in the past 'three years.

But It was a rough day for cyclists in Tour de France SCHMUTTE withdraws Erik Zabel to last place of the stage and fine him 200 Swiss francs said Jean-Francois Pe-sheux, sports director of the Tour de France. Zabel was disqualified for interference early in the final sprint Later, Pesheux said that Djamoli-din Abdoujaparov of Uzbekistan tested positive after the second stage and was disqualified for the rest of the Tour. Abdoujaparov, a powerful sprinter, originally was third in Friday's stage behind Zabel, then was moved to second after the disqualification. The director of Abdoujaparov's team Lotto, Jean-Luc Vanden-broucke, confirmed the positive test. "It is a delicate problem because he was controlled for two different products a product of unknown origin and another product coming from a member of my team that I fired immediately," Vandenbroucke said.

Another rider, Tom Steels of Belgium, also was thrown out of the race, for tossing his water bottle at another rider during the sprint fin ish. It was the first time a rider was thrown out of the race for "a violent gesture," Tour de France officials said. Steels, another of the top sprinters, was jockeying for position when he suddenly threw the bottle toward Frenchman Frederic Moncassin, who finished fifth in the stage. Cedric Vasseur held onto the leader's yellow jersey. Zabel originally won the final More on TOUR, Page 3C MARENNES, France AP) The winner of the stage was placed last.

Another top rider was thrown out of the race and another tested positive It was not a typical day for the Tour de France Friday. Jeroen Blijlevens was declared the winner of the sixth stage after organizers took away Erik Zabel's apparent victory and placed him last for the stage. "After looking at the images of the sprint of the sixth stage, the jury of commissioners has decided to put after careful consideration, I feel that Morning-side College is the best situation for me." Former Nebraska-Omaha Coach Bob Hanson, who has been an assistant coach at Kansas State the past three seasons, remains a candidate for the Fort Hays State job. Hanson, who coached the Mavericks for 25 More on SCHMUTTE, Page 5C i.