Spring Maverick Athletics Preview

UNO is in the home stretch. The Mavericks’ four-year reclassification from Division II to Division I enters its final season this spring. Beginning in fall 2015, all UNO teams will be eligible for NCAA and Summit League Championships.

That’s not to say the transition has been without highlights. The baseball team begins 2015 as the two-time defending Summit regular season champs. Last fall, the men’s soccer team earned a share of the league regular season title in just its fourth year of existence. All who follow the Mavericks hope those are signs of even better things to come.

Following is a sport-by-sport preview of the teams that will take to the field, track and court this spring. It appeared in the Spring 2015 UNO Magazine.

Check out the spring athletics schedule

Baseball

The biggest question for the UNO baseball team is, can it pull off a three-peat of its regular season title after winning in 2013 and 2014? It certainly will be a more difficult task with the addition of Oral Roberts, a baseball power that rejoined the Summit this year after three years out of the league.

Omaha’s 2015 roster is loaded with experience as 18 letter-winners return, five of whom are position starters. Five Mavericks earned All-Summit honors a year ago, led by 2014 Summit League Pitcher of the Year Tyler Fox, who went 9-1 with a 2.59 ERA and 57 strikeouts. Fox was perfect on the mound in league play, going 5-0 in seven appearances.

Fox is joined by fellow first- team all-conference selection Clayton Taylor, a junior infielder who led the league in RBIs and was second in hits, doubles, home runs and slugging percentage as a sophomore.

Three more Mavericks return as second-team All-Summit picks from 2014: senior outfielder Daniel Jewett, junior outfielder Cole Gruber and junior utility player Alex Schultz. Gruber paced the league in runs scored and stolen bases, and he ranked fifth nationally in stolen bases.

UNO’s roster also includes 14 newcomers and four redshirts. The Mavericks will be led by Head Coach Bob Herold, named Summit League Coach of the Year for a second straight season in 2014. Herold enters his 16th year and holds a career record of 478-322-2.

UNO opened its season Feb. 13-15 at the GCU Classic in Phoenix.

Softball

After finishing third in the Summit League regular season, the UNO softball team heads into 2015 looking to challenge for the conference title. The Mavericks finished 33-16 overall and 12-6 in Summit League play and had three players on the All-Summit League Team.

UNO returns 10 players from last season and will lean heavily on senior Allie Mathewson and juniors Campbell Ditto, Sydney Hames and Tara Trede. Mathewson was named First Team All-Summit League as a center fielder last season. She led the Mavs in batting average (.366), doubles (13), triples (3), runs (45) and stolen bases (8). Ditto hit 11 home runs and had a .993 fielding percentage as a catcher, and Hames hit .292 and scored 47 runs as a sophomore. Trede hit .287 and had 110 infield assists from third base.

Other returners this season include seniors Kat Barrow and Tonya Peterson, junior Bailey Schulenberg, and sophomores Lia Mancuso, Lizzie Noble and Nicole Warren.

UNO looks to replace a pair of talented seniors from last season — All-Summit Leaguers Dana Elsasser and Amber Lutmer. But a talented group seven newcomers should help ease the blow. Among those newcomers are senior Carly Nielsen, sophomore Abbie Clanton, and freshmen Jaycee Bernholtz, Jaycee Hinrichs, Megan May, Kelly Pattison and Kylie Schwarting.

The Mavs began their season at the Tangi Tourism Lion Classic in Hammond, La., Feb. 6-8. It’s the first of six tournaments UNO will play in before hosting its first home games against Northern Colorado on March 17.

Track & Field

The Mavericks will be fresh off the indoor season when the outdoor campaign begins March 20 at Tulsa. While the Mavericks will be without superstar Sami Spenner, they will have several accomplished seniors leading the way.

Both Katarina Zarudnaya and Denneil Shaw did not compete during the indoor season. Zarudnaya is a specialist in the short distance events and
is rounding back into form after battling injuries for the better part of two seasons. She finished fourth in the Summit League in the 800 meters last season and set the school record in the mile at Nebraska in February. Outdoors, she had UNO’s best time in the 1,500 meters and its second-best time in the 800 meters. She was prevented from running in the 800 meter final at the Summit championship due to injury.

Shaw should be one of the Mavericks’ top jumping threats, particularly in the
triple jump where she posted UNO’s second-best mark outdoors last season. She
also had UNO’s third-best long jump mark behind Spenner and fellow Jamaican Kathie-Lee Laidley.

UNO head coach Chris Richardson will continue to mentor promising freshman Stephanie Ahrens during the outdoor season. In her first collegiate meet indoors, she tied the school record in the high jump. Outdoors, Ahrens is expected to be a scoring threat in the high jump as well as other jumping events.

Seniors will figure prominently in the distance events. Ashley Kildow was UNO’s top finisher in each cross country event last fall with Kristin Rogers running second each time. Kildow is expected to run shorter distances while Rogers tackles events like the 5K and 10K. MiKayla Peck is another senior who provides depth in the distance events.

The season culminates with the Summit League Outdoor Championship at Macomb, Ill., May 13-15.

Men’s Golf

The Mavericks will have plenty to build on when they begin their spring season. As UNO’s one split- season sport, the golf teams play half its schedule in the fall and the other half in the spring. Last fall, the men’s team finished first in two tournaments, including the UNO Invitational at ArborLinks in September.

Senior Karl Krieser, an original member of the men’s golf team in the Division I era, was UNO’s leading scorer in the fall with a stroke average of 74.3. His best finish was runner-up at the UNO Invitational when he became the first Maverick to finish a tournament below par.

Krieser and fellow four-year seniors Alex Holtan and Taylor Sidzyik finished 1-2-3 in scoring in the fall season. Both Holtan and Sidzyik had a stroke average of 76.2.

It wasn’t just the veterans who chipped in for Mavs in the fall. Freshman Phillip Baumberger was fourth in team scoring (76.3) and contributed low rounds of 72 at Old Dominion and 73 at SIUE. Junior transfer Brandon Sletmoen, along with Krieser, fired two rounds of 71, tying for the low round of the season.

The Mavericks open the spring at the Atchafalaya Intercollegiate at Nicholls State Feb. 23 and will play in tournaments at Sacramento State, Louisiana Monroe, Arkansas Little Rock, Oral Roberts and Western Illinois before finishing at the Summit League Championship in Lompoc, Calif., in May.

Women’s Golf

Youth led the way for the women’s golf team in the fall season as freshman Megan Vetrovsky posted UNO’s best scoring average, 78.5. Vetrovsky, of McCook, Neb., shot a round of 74 at Missouri State and four rounds of 76, giving her all but one of the top six rounds shot by a Maverick in the fall.

Junior Katie Kesti had UNO’s top round of the fall, a 72 at the Creighton Classic in October that helped her finish third overall, the best finish of the season so far for any Maverick. Kesti ranks second in team scoring through the fall with a stroke average of 79.8.

Senior Sophie Peters (80.2) and junior Makenna Kroeker (86.1) ranked 3-4 in scoring for UNO in the fall.

The Mavericks biggest challenge in the spring will continue to be depth. They have just six players on the roster. Freshmen Alexa Ruwe and Katelyn Strudthoff are still adjusting to the college game.

Like the men’s team, the women will play in mostly warm-weather climes during the spring, competing in tournaments in Arizona and Florida as well as at Southern Utah and Southern Illinois. The women’s Summit League Championship will be held April 20-22 at Monterey, Calif.

Men’s Tennis

A young men’s tennis squad will look to provide fresh energy for the 2015 season and help the Mavericks improve on last season’s 6-18 finish.

In his first season, Tyson Thomas is looking to turn around a men’s program that finished 1-4 in Summit League play last season. One of the Mavs’ key returners is junior Erik Anderson, who led UNO with eight wins in singles action last year.

Sophomore James McManus won seven matches as a freshman, and Coach Thomas looks for more contributions this season. John Ellis returns to the program after studying abroad last season. As a freshman, Ellis played ten matches at
the No. 2 singles slot and one match at the No. 1 singles spot.

Other returners for the Mavs are senior Nathan Greteman and sophomores Colin Buckley and Lukas Vanzura. Joining UNO for their first collegiate season are Marko Minic and Ignace Warson.

UNO kicked off its spring season against Arkansas Jan. 19 in Fayetteville, Ark.

Women’s Tennis

The UNO women’s tennis team enters the 2015 spring season with a nucleus of six returning letterwinners from 2014: senior Jacqueline Baude, junior Molly Matricardi and sophomores Kenzie Hill, Maddie Holscher, Allison Johnson and Hylan Miller. Three newcomers have been added to head coach Mike Saniuk’s roster with freshmen Michelle Lo and Rachel Skolaski and UT Permian Basin transfer Rebecca Stafford.

Lo made her mark in the fall season at the USTA/ITA Central Regional Championships,picking up a main-round doubles win with Johnson. Matricardi also had a standout performance at the regional tournament, winning a qualifying-round singles match during her run.

The Mavericks lost four letter-winners from 2014, including All-Summit selection Alex Tran. Last season, she and Miller became the first Mavericks in program history to earn all-league honors in the Division I era.

UNO opened its 2015 schedule Jan. 22 against Air Force.