by Will Kimmey
April 8, 2005

MEANINGFUL MATCHUP Winthrop visits No. 4 Georgia Tech this weekend, and a victory in this nonconference series could give the Eagles a strong claim to a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament. Winthrop's veteran lineup and weekend rotation gives it a chance, even on the road against an offense as strong as Georgia Tech's. Eagles ace Kevin Slowey (7-0, 2.38) beat Clemson earlier this year and will oppose Lee Hyde on Friday night. Jason Neighborgall moves back a day to take Hyde's Saturday start. MIDWEEK MONSTER Oklahoma State junior first baseman Adam Carr jacked five home runs and drove in 13 runs in a doubleheader sweep Tuesday against Akransas-Pine Bluff. That raised his season homer total to 15, the most in the nation. The Cowboys hit 13 home runs in the two games, which they won 21-2 and 28-4 to take out their frustration from being shut out for the final two games of the Nebraska series. Oklahoma State welcomes Texas Tech to Allie P. Reynolds Stadium this weekend in a battle of teams that need a Big 12 Conference series win to build toward an NCAA tournament berth. Carr faced plenty of competition for this week's honor. Davidson's Jay Heafner hit a go-ahead three-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning Wednesday before earning a save on the mound in the top of the ninth to beat Wake Forest 11-10. Illinois DH Dusty Bensko hit two home runs in an 11-run first inning Wednesday and finished with seven RBIs, but the Illini still fell 22-15 to Western Michigan, which received six hits--two homers--from shortstop Adam Rosales. FUN WITH NUMBERS 22--No. 7 North Carolina had won 22 straight games at Boshamer Stadium this season before three errors helped Elon earn a 10-3 win Wednesday night. The 10 runs were the most allowed by the Tar Heels this year, though just five runs were earned; the staff still leads the Atlantic Coast Conference with a 2.06 ERA. North Carolina visits Maryland this weekend for an ACC series. WE DIDN'T MAKE THIS UP When Cal State Fullerton coach George Horton and UC Irvine coach Dave Serrano met at home plate to exchange lineup cards last weekend, Horton handed Serrano, his pitching coach until taking the Irvine job this summer, a lineup that featured only past Titans heroes: Jose Mota 2B, Aaron Rowand RF, Mark Kotsay CF, Phil Nevin 3B, Kurt Suzuki C, Tim Wallach 1B, Mike Lamb DH, Reed Johnson LF, Shane Turner SS, Jason Windsor P. REST OF THE RANKED Cal State Fullerton (2) at Cal State Northridge Tulane (3) at Charlotte South Carolina (12) at Louisiana State (8) Florida (5) at Georgia Arizona (6) at Washington State Oregon State (16) at Stanford (10) Rice (11) at Louisiana Tech Kansas State at Baylor (15) Texas A&M (18) at Missouri (23) College of Charleston (19) at Georgia State Wake Forest at Florida State (20) Long Beach State (21) at UC Irvine Mississippi State at Auburn (23) Arizona State (24) at California Tennessee (25) at Kentucky

Alex Gordon admits he felt the pressure, and the pressure changed him.

The junior third baseman entered the season as the top-ranked college draft prospect and also with the charge of leading Nebraska back to the NCAA tournament after an eighth-place finish in the Big 12 in 2004.

Gordon batted .265-2-6 through Nebraska's first 10 games, and the Cornhuskers were 8-2. His anxiety forced him into a crouch at the plate that he didn't even notice until dissecting his at-bats on videotape.

"At the beginning of the season I was really trying to do too much to live up to the expectations put on me," said Gordon, the conference player of the year as a sophomore after batting .365-18-75. "I feel more comfortable at the plate now."

The results agree. Gordon, 6 foot 1 and 210 pounds, has hit .486-9-26 during his last 20 games while slugging .986 and posting a .617 on-base percentage. Nebraska has gone 18-2 over that stretch (26-4 overall, 5-1 Big 12) to rise to No. 17 in the nation. It faces No. 1 Texas this weekend in a home series in which ESPN2 will televise Friday's 7 p.m. game, and ESPN will show games at 2 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

Nebraska's success relates directly to its improved offense, coach Mike Anderson said. The Huskers are scoring 8.2 runs per game this year after managing about 6.5 last season. Seniors Brandon Fusilier (.346-10-36), Curtis Ledbetter (.362-9-31) and junior Brandon Buckman (.374-2-21) all have played a role in the improvement, and some of their success has lightened the load on Gordon, though he can still carry the offense by himself at times.

"He's the best player I've ever coached against," Kansas coach Ritch Price said. "He hit two home runs on Friday night against us and another one Saturday that was the longest I've ever seen; it went about 480 feet over the batter's eye in center field.

"We pitched to him. We were trying to be careful, and that was our best lefthanded starter on Friday and he still hit two out. He's that good."

Still, teams at times treat Gordon as if he were Barry Bonds, especially early in the year when Gordon's supporting cast hadn't yet proven successful. He's drawn 30 walks (against 15 strikeouts) in 30 games, and has made adjustments when teams won't pitch to him. Early on, he was chasing pitches away, setting himself up for inside fastballs late in the count.

"I wasn't taking what they were giving me," Gordon said. "Now, if they want to walk me, I'll take that."

Anderson noted Gordon's improved approach at the plate.

"You can tell in the first few games of the weekend if they're going to pitch to him or not," Anderson said. "But he draws walks, too; it's not always an easy four (balls). Against Oklahoma State (last weekend), he was 3-2 and (Scott Richmond) threw an incredible breaking ball. Gordon just spits on it. He goes to first and then Fusilier hits a home run right after that. It was an incredible at-bat."

Gordon, a tireless worker who gets the key to Nebraska's training facility so he can hit and lift weights during Christmas break, lifted weights and ran sprints over the summer to enhance his speed. He's still not a burner, but already he has stolen a career-high 15 bases (in 16 tries) to make opponents pay for walking him.

"He's so instinctive," Anderson said. "He's not the fastest guy, but he gets great jumps. He's got a sign he gives me when he wants to run on his own, and he's flashing that 99 percent of the time he's on base."

All told, Gordon's .413-11-32 numbers are pretty much in line with the preseason expectations. He's on track to be selected among the first five or 10 picks in the June draft and has Nebraska in contention to reach the College World Series for the third time since 2001. What's scary is that an American League scouting director who has seen Gordon several times over the course of the year still doesn't think he's playing he's best.

"He's better now (than at the beginning of the year), but there's still some tension in his swing," the scouting director said. "He's putting up numbers, and I was watching for that, but it's still not the same swing as last year. Obviously, he's still a premium guy and we're on him."

AROUND THE NATION

• The preview is a little shorter than normal this week, but to make up for things, we've got our midseason report , which includes two All-America teams, a freshman All-America team, various first-half awards and a 64-team NCAA tournament field prediction and analysis.

• ESPN will televise the April 22 game between Ohio State and Michigan (the first scheduled night game at Ray Fischer Stadium) and the May 7 doubleheader between Notre Dame and St. John's, with the first game on ESPNU and the second on ESPN2.

• Mississippi will move Matt Maloney to the Saturday starter's role this week, with Stephen Head returning to the closer duties he held as a freshman and then for part of his sophomore season. The No. 9 Rebels are making the move more to give Maloney (4-0, 0.89 with four saves) regular work after he's been shuttled from midweek starts to weekend relief duty this year. Plus, Head enjoys the variety and likes the feeling of entering games with leads on the line. Alabama, Mississippi's opponent this weekend, has T.J. Large and Brent Carter set to go in the first two games, with Sunday's starter to be announced. Large and Carter rank second and third in the Southeastern Conference in strikeouts, while Wade LeBlanc sits in 10th despite not pitching in four weeks.

• Rowan (N.J.) senior Josh Schwartz set a Division III record by winning his 26th consecutive game by beating York (Pa.) College 4-2, and then broke the NCAA all-divisions record by winning No. 27 in a 15-1 victory against Gwynedd-Mercy. He worked the first two innings of the game and earned a win based on the NCAA predetermined start rule, which allows a starting pitcher to receive a win with less than five innings pitched if a team decides in advance it will use more than three pitchers. Schwartz, a 6-foot, 175-pound lefthander, has gone 28-3 in his career for Rowan, which is 15-0 and ranked No. 1 in the American Baseball Coaches Association D-III poll. Wake Forest¹s Kyle Sleeth (2001-03) and Brigham Young¹s Scott Nielsen (1978, 82-83) hold the Division I mark with 26 consecutive wins.

• Washington sophomore righthander Richie Lentz will miss the rest of the year after he has Tommy John surgery Wednesday. The No. 1 prospect in the New England Collegiate League last summer was supposed to close for the Huskies, but made only one appearance, allowing three runs on four hits and a walk over two innings. A hand injury forced Lentz out in January, but he felt pain in his elbow when he returned to the mound.

• Fans of the NCAA basketball tournament might remember North Carolina State freshman center Andrew Brackman, who scored 7.4 points per game for the Wolfpack. Once basketball ended, the 6-foot-10 athlete reported for baseball duty. A two-sport star at Moeller High in Cincinnati, Brackman features a low-90s fastball that helped him close out N.C. State's 11-4 win Wednesday against East Carolina with a hitless ninth inning. He's thrown five innings on the season, allowing two unearned runs on three hits, two walks and six strikeouts, and he should see time this weekend at Virginia.

• Jeff Clement extended his hitting streak to 11 games in Southern California's win against Pepperdine on Tuesday. He's batting .514 during the streak and .611 in his last six games to raise his overall numbers to .367-6-24 after a slow start. The Trojans this weekend play host to UCLA, coached by former USC assistant John Savage.

• The Missouri Valley Conference issued a public reprimand to Wichita State junior righthander Mike Pelfrey for intentionally throwing at Iowa's Dusty Napoleon on March 25. Pelfrey told reporters after the game he threw a 3-0 offspeed pitch inside at Napoleon in the seventh inning because Napoleon had knocked down a Shockers baserunner with a hard tag earlier in the game. Iowa retaliated by throwing an offspeed pitch at a Wichita State batter in the bottom of the inning, and then umpires issued warnings to both dugouts.

"It was a very poor decision on my part, and I truly regret both what I said and did," Pelfrey said. "I am sincerely sorry."
• Texas Tech assistant Travis Walden resigned to pursue other interests after two seasons as the pitching coach. Coach Larry Hayes said volunteer assistant Brandon Roberson will oversee the pitching staff for the rest of the year. Texas Tech will seek a permanent replacement following the season.