Lincoln Journal Star from Lincoln, Nebraska • 21

Li i(oi i.v FRIDAY, NOVEMBER LINCOLN, NE. JOURNAL 21 Osfoorne confid eet in NIPs kicking game, Klein Probable starters history and Nil's highest scoring game In Big Eight history. ISU's 503 yards were the most allowed by Nebraska all last season. Alan Hood, the quarterback who replaced Alex Esplnoia In the third quarter at Missouri, started for the Cyclones In the season opener against Iowa. He lost the lob after throwing three interceptions.

Espinoza developed into the Big Eight's most productive passer (1,498 yards) before suffering a broken ankle at Mizzou. Hood Is considered a better runner with more quickness. Senior I -back Jeff Smith needs 158 yards to move from 11th to 10th among Nebraska's career rushing leaders. He also needs lo points to move from 12th tolOthonthe career scoring chart. Tom Osborne has moved ahead of Penn Stale's Joe Paterno and now ranks second among NCAA active coaches In winning percentage.

Osborne is 115-26-2 Paterno is 175-41-2 Oklahoma's Barry Switzer is the NCAA leader. He's 111-22-4 skipped Seward's first-round game in Wednesday night's state high school playoffs to study for a Thursday morning test in thermal dynamics. Dale Klein needs no more credentials as a serious student. But he is just starting his portfolio as a serious kicker. Nebraska fans learned to appreciate Klein when he kicked a pressure-packed 36-yard field goal on his first collegiate attempt against Oklahoma State.

It was the culmination of years of discipline and dreaming. For the last five summers, Klein has kicked every day on that field he can see from his bedroom window. "I'd kick an hour or an hour-and-a-half, sometimes twice a day," he said. "It was the perfect way to get a tan without getting bored." Now, Klein would like to take all those hours of dedication and turn them into a scholarship. "Most of the players think I'm on one NEBRASKA (7-1) Offense IOWA STATE (2-5-1) No Name Yr Ht Wt Pos Wt Ht Yr NameNo 94 Hiemer Sr.

6-3 215 TE 232 6-4 Sr. Smoldt 82 73 Behning Sr. 6-6 290 LT 263 6-7 Jr. Westemever 75 58 Grimminger Sr. 6-3 265 LG 264 6-4 So.

Hundorf 62 57 Travnowicz Sr. 6-6 265 256 6-3 So. Mawdsley 50 67 Orton Sr. 6-1 260 RG 253 6-3 So. Jasper 63 77 Morrow Sr.

6-3 260 RT 294 6-8 Jr. Eggleston 65 88 Kimball Sr. 6-0 195 SE 182 6-0 Jr. Henderson 89 14 Turner Jr. 6-2 205 QB 195 6-1 Jr.

Hood 12 28 Smith Sr. 5-9 195 IB 170 5-9 Sr. Hanson 37 26 Rathman Jr. 6-1 235 FB 190 5-8 Sr. T.

Davis 22 17 Swanson Sr. 5-9 200 WB 175 6-0 So. Minor 87 NEBRASKA Defense IOWA STATE 87 Weber Sr. 6-2 210 LE 224 6-1 Sr. Williams 45 76 Spachman So.

6-4 260 LT 264 6-3 Sr. Little 93 52 Groeber Sr. 6-2 245 MG 75 Stuckey Sr. 6-3 245 RT 255 6-4 Sr. Moore 91 90 Strasburger Sr.

6-1 205 RE 239 6-5 Jr. Luebbers 48 51 Daum Sr. 6-3 235 LB 213 6-3 So. Gibson 57 41 Munford So. 6-2 225 LB 235 6-1 So.

Braswell 51 LB 215 6-2 Jr. Iverson 52 2 McCashland Sr. 6-1 200 188 5-11 Sr. A. Davis 25 33 Burke Sr.

5-10 190 LCB 179 5-10 So. Anthony 35 11 Harris Sr. 6-0 190 RCB 175 5-10 Sr. K. Williams 23 10 Clark Sr.

6-3 200 196 6-3 Jr. Mayze 41 Kickoff: 1:30 p.m., Cyclone Stadium, Ames, Iowa. Broadcast: Nebraska Football Network (Omaha KFAB, Lincoln KFOR and KZKX). Boys 9 gymnastics 'Cinderella race now," Klein said. "But no coaches have ever said anything." They will, though, especially if a 24-point underdog plays another great defensive game Saturday and Klein has to be the difference.

NU-ISU Notes For Nebraska, Saturday is the first of a two-game road trip. Next week, the Huskers visit Kansas. NU has a school record 25-game conference winning streak. Ironically, the old 24-game record was halted by a 23-23 tie at Iowa State In 1972. That game was played at the old Clyde Williams Field.

Since 1975, ISU has Played at Cyclone Stadium. For the first time this season, though, the playing surface is called Jack Trice Field. The state board of regents approved the name last December to honor the school's first black Plover, who died of internal bleeding and a ruptured lung after a 1923 game at Minnesota. Official ceremonies honoring Trice will be during Saturday's halttlme. Last year, Nebraska defeated Iowa State, 72-29, In Lincoln.

It was the highest scoring game in Memorial Stadium Lincoln East senior Gary Timber-lake, who won the all-around titles in the Trans-Nebraska meet, the Art Harris Invite and the Bellevue Invitational, is leading Lincoln High's Dar-rel Watermeier by 0.05 heading into the finals. Watermeier nipped Timberlake in last week's district. But if either one of the two gymnasts win, it would be the first time a Lincolnite had won the all-around title since 1974 when Southeast's Kirk Fridrich took the title. No Lincoln East gymnast has ever won the boys all-around title and the last Lincoln High gymanst to win was Mickey Johnsen in 1964-65. Timberlake leads the qualifiers in the parallel bars and the pommel horse, while Watermeier leads the floor exercise qualifiers and is second in the horizontal bar, vault and p-bars.

"Gary had a great score considering that he missed a little on his high barTOutine," Eppert said. Timberlake overstepped his dismount on the high bar and finished with a 7.85, his only score below 8.0. He did post a 9.1 on the floor exercise, 9.2 on the vault and 9.1 on the p-bars. "Darrel (Watermeier) had his best day ever on the vault with a 9.5, where we usually count a 9.0 and that helped the team quite a bit," Lincoln High Coach Mark Shearer said. Watermeier tallied 9.4 on the floor exercise, but had a 7.7 on the rings and a 7.6 on the pommel horse.

"We're happy to have any lead at all after the first day," Shearer said. "We hit our team all-time high on the floor exercise and then hit an all-time See GYM on Page 22 By Randy York Assistant Sports Editor Two weeks ago, Iowa State could have beaten Oklahoma, 13-12, with a field goal Last week, the Cyclones used two field goals to tie Missouri, 1414. This week, Tom Osborne said the kicking game may be as important as it has been all season and he is confident in all phases of the Huskers' kicking game. That confidence includes Dale Klein, the Seward sophomore who missed the first extra point of his high school or college career in a gusty last week against Kansas State. Klein is ready to win Saturday's Iowa State game, if he is put in that position.

Kickoff is 1:30 p.m. at sold-out Cyclone Stadium (50,000) in Ames. Third-ranked Nebraska is 7-1 overall and 4-0 in the Big Eight. Iowa State is 2-5-1 overall and 0-3-1 in the conference. Two weeks ago, kicking would have been a ludicrous topic for this kind of matchup.

But not now. Iowa State's defense has put a new light on the game. "Iowa State's defense appears to be awfully, awfully strong," Osborne said. "I thought when we played Oklahoma State, that would be the best defense we'd see all year. Now, I'm not so sure.

Defensively, at this stage of the season, Iowa State is playing very much on par with the best teams we've seen." If that spells more pressure for Klein, he's ready. He's kicked thousands of winning field goals on the Seward high school field across the street from his family's four-bedroom home. Dale Klein can look out his bedroom window and see the field. "It's an end zone view, I can see the goal posts," he said. "I can even see the scoreboard at the other end.

I've been looking at that since I was two years old." Dale Klein, believes he was born to kick. He is the fifth boy in a five-boy family. None of his older brothers played high school football. 1 Gary, 30, is a doctor in Scottsbluff. John, 28, is an engineer in Lincoln.

Jim, 26, is a commerical artist in Lincoln. Dennis, 24, is a physics and chemistry teacher in Aurora. The four older Kleins were not football players. But they were all kickers. They used that high school field as a playground.

"I kicked all the time with my brothers," Dale recalled. "Gary and John loved to punt. Jim and Dennis were soccer-style kickers. Dennis even tried to walk on at Nebraska. But they told him he had to have a film." Although his brothers preferred academics over athletics.

Dale managed to excel in both. He was valedictorian of Seward's 1982 graduating class of 120 and came to Nebraska on a. Regent's David Scholarship. He still carries a 3.65 grade-point-average in mechanical engineering and NU gridders healthy, ready The third-ranked Nebraska football team appears to be ready for Saturday afternoon's Big Eight Conference battle with Iowa State in Ames, Iowa. "We've had good practices, and we're relatively healthy," Cornhusker head Coach Tom Osborne said after an abbreviated practice on Thursday.

"Everything's fine." Nebraska's 60-player travel roster is set, with freshman Keith Jones going as the No. 3 1-back in place of junior Paul Miles, who's been sidelined with a dislocated shoulder suffered at Syracuse. The only changes on the travel squad since the last road trip to Colorado involved lower-unit players. PerneU Gatson was included as a third-string wingback, and Mike Hoefler will travel as a fifth offensive guard. Both are third-year sophomores.

Osborne: Other side to Rozier OMAHA (AP) Nebraska football Coach Tom Osborne said Thursday that he spoke with Mike Rozier, who admitted he accepted money from an agent last season in violation of NCAA rules, and the conversation put the situation "in different light" "There's a side of the story that nobody knows," Osborne said at his weekly breakfast in Omaha. But Osborne said he's not free to discuss that other side. Travel roster on Page 22 teams in late change of coaches and the track coach ended up having to take the, job of coaching gymnastics," Crosby said. "But I think I really missed competing in high school because I didn't have a very good year. "Now, that I'm back, I'm having a good time and having a lot of fun.

Plus, we're in the team finals and not too many people expected that," she said. "I don't know how well well do in the finals, but the fact that we have just one senior, me, and the rest soph-mores, it's a good thing just to get to the team finals," Crosby said. Could make difference As for the all-around race, Crosby said that her 9.1 score in the floor exercise, compared to Urban's leading 9.45, could make a difference in the finals. "I was kind of stumbling around on trie floor today, but I saw Karli had a fall on the balance beam and she doesn't do that often, either." Urban finished the first round of the all-around at 37.35, followed by Crosby at 37.25 and Lincoln East all-arounders Kristin Gutz and Ann Rose-land tied at 36.30. Crosby said that she had used conservative routines In Thursday's competition, to rriake sure her scores didn't hurt the team score.

"Now that we're in the finals, I'll probably put the front-flip-roundoff-handspring-tuck back in the floor exercise and the two back handsprings back in on the beam," she said. Northeast's Pat Diaz during his rings performance. LNE's Crosby perpetuates tradition By Ken Hambleton Journal Prep Editor Who. wants to claim the title of "Cinderella" in the boys' State High School gymnastics meet Friday at 2 p.m. at the Bob Devaney Sports Center? Lincoln High could claim the laurel.

The Links are leading the team race by 0.45 over Omaha South after Thursday's first round. Lincoln High hasn't been in the team finals since 1981 and the Links, who have won seven state titles, haven't won a state gymnastics crown since 1968. Lincoln East could claim the title. The Spartans qualified for the finals with a team of seven seniors, six of whom never competed in gymnastics before Coach Dave Eppert spotted them in a ninth grade PE class and told them they'd have a chance at earning a varsity letter. Millard South, which has never won a boys state title, is in the chase, third behind Lincoln High.

And Omaha South could be the surprise team. Omaha South could not claim the title of "Cinderella" but the Packers are in the chase for their eighth team title in the last 10 years. Even the competition for the individual all-around title could be termed a "Cinderella" race. Hi i STAFF PHOTO BY GAIL FOLDA Southeast's Van Portsche performs in the floor exercise. ocket, By Ryly Jane Hambleton Journal Sports Writer Lincoln High took its time getting into its match and Lincoln Northeast almost didn't get to the gym on time.

But the JJnks rallied to earn a 12-15, 15-5, 15-11 victory over Lincoln East Thursday night, while top-ranked Northeast came back from a sluggish start to post a 15-6, 15-5 victory over Lincoln Southeast in the Class A-4 district volleyball semifinals. The Rockets and Lincoln High will meet Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the final at Johnson Gym. yf i I 1 -j i i STAFF PHOTO BY GAIL FOLOA STAFF PHOTO BY GAIL FOLOA Lincoln East's Kristin Gutz executes her routine in the floor re 1 si Lincoln East, in second place behind Northwest, appears to be the only team with a chance to catch the Huskies. "Our seniors have been unbelievable and really came through for us, but you have to look at our sophomores Kristin Gutz and Ann Rose-land," East Coach Dave Eppert said.

"Kristin has had two blown out ankles (sprains) this year and she's still attacking the tumbling as though nothing bothered her. That's a tough kid, if you ask me," he said. "Those two (Gutz and Roseland) really push each other and it's giving both of them some of their best scores of the year. "We had some great scores today and those two all-arounders carried a lot of weight for us," he said. Pleased with score Omaha Northwest Coach Roy Kat-skee said he was pleased with the Huskies' 144.25 score.

"Typically, the first day is the hardest because the team is trying to qualify and the girls are trying to qualify for their individual events. So all the pressure is on that first day. "If we would have hit the beam, where we had to count three falls, we would have had that 146 we scored at Metro," he said. "All Lincoln East has to do to catch us is hope we break up and they keep the same consistency they've shown all season. We can only beat ourselves at this point." By Ken Hambleton Journal Prep Editor There's a lot of tradition behind Cheri Crosby's effort to win the girls' all-around title in the State High School gymnastics meet at the Bob Devaney Sports Center.

Crosby, a senior at Lincoln Northeast, is following the tracks of recent former Northeast state champions Renee Gould, Kim Grabowski and Terri Furmaa "Kim (Grabowski) is our assistant coach and Renee (a sophomore at Nebraska) is the one who originally talked me into going out for high school gymnastics my sophomore year," Crosby said. "They've helped me a lot," said Crosby, who trailed defending all-around champion Karli Urban of Omaha Northwest by one-tenth of a point after Thursday's first round of the two-day meet The finals start at 2 p.m. Friday. Helped Rockets Crosby helped the Rockets a lot, too, as Northeast joined Omaha Central Lincoln East and defending champion and first-round leader Omaha Northwest in the team finals. "This is the reason I came back to the high school team this year," said Crosby, who competed for the Nebraska School of Gymnastics last year and sat out the high school season.

"I wasn't sure where the program was going last year, because we had a Link spikers to meet in A-4 final "It doesn't exonerate Mike," Osborne said. "But it certainly puts him in a different light than people have cast huh in." In an interview with Sports Illustrated last month, Rozier said he signed with an agent before his senior year at Nebraska and accepted $600 a month from him. Either violation would have made him ineligible last year, a season in which he won the Heisman Trophy. Since Rozier's disclosure, several other professional football players have said that they, too, signed with agents and accepted money while in college. "We had a good conversation," Osborne said.

"He's had a tough year. When you have money, people tend to think everything is OK with you, and See ROZIER on Page 22 got a point on an unforced error, but when the Links got the ball back, Hansen served an ace for the game. Lincoln High fell behind 54) in the final game, but after taking a 7-5 lead, Julie Vermeer tied the game for East on two spikes and the Spartans took an 11-7 lead on four straight Lincoln High errors. But the Links countered with spikes by Waterman and Polivka and then came the blocks by Waterman and Carstens. "We are a defensive team, and the block is such an emotional thing for us," No.

2 Lincoln High counted on the serving of Tammy Waterman in the second game and trailed 5-0 and 11-7 in the deciding game before Waterman and Becky Polivka contributed a pair of spikes and Rhonda Carstens and Waterman teamed for a pair of blocks. "We haven't played well for a long time and tonight, we started playing real tentatively," said Links Coach Lana Peterson. "The girls seemed to forget all the rules of who takes what in their nervousness. But then we finally started serving well and got going." East never trailed in the opening Peterson said. "It probably motivates us more than a big spike, and to finally get that first big one really made the difference." The Links are 14-5, while East fell to 13-10.

Southeast jumped ahead of the Rockets 6-3 with a pair of ace serves and a spike by Chris Jacques, and Jill Acker added a spike, a dink and a block. But Walek served three straight aces before Pam Woodward connected on four spikes and Jamie Geisler added a See VOLLEYBALL on Page 22 I game, and twice pulled away afterlhe Links tied the game at 8 and 11. Julie McMahon had five spikes to lead the Spartans, Robyn Elefsrud added a block, a spike and two ace serves and Jodi Vermeer had three spikes. "Everybody has to be involved in a great match like this," said East Coach Myron Oehlerking. In the second game, the Links went on the attack.

Carstens and Susie Hansen each had three spikes and Hansen added a dink and a block. Polivka served a pair of aces. Eastjtopped Lincoln High at 14-3 and t..