2C SPORTS • THURSDAY, MAY 8, 2014 BRIEFLY FOOTBALL Seahawks sign cornerback Sherman to record deal RENTON, Wash. — Richard Sherman is the latest member of the Seattle Seahawks secondary to be locked up for the long term. The All-Pro cornerback is getting paid the best of anyone. Sherman signed a four-year contract extension Wednesday with the Seahawks, a deal that makes him one of the highestpaid cornerbacks in NFL history. Sherman announced the deal on his website ahead of a press conference that was called by the team. Sherman wrote that the extension is for $57.4 million with $40 million guaranteed. The deal includes a reported $11 million signing bonus. It’s a massive deal for a player who earned $375,000 in base salary as a rookie in 2011. But Sherman insisted the money will not change the approach or attitude that has made him one of the top defensive players in football and a magnet for attention. “The goal has always been to stay in Seattle and continue to play for the Seahawks,” Sherman wrote. “With this chapter closed, I can continue to focus on what is important — defending our Super Bowl Championship and being the best cornerback in the NFL.” BASKETBALL Former Bluejay Jones doing ‘great’ following surgery Former Creighton basketball player Josh Jones said Wednesday that he was doing “great” after undergoing his second open-heart surgery in seven years Tuesday. “Honestly, I feel great today,” Jones said in a text message to The World-Herald. “They have been balancing my pain with medicine, and I already stood up and challenged myself to walk 150 feet.” Creighton’s team physician, Dr. Douglas Ramos, said Jones’ doctors had told him that Jones’ surgery to replace a valve in his heart went well. Jones originally had surgery in the fall of 2007 after an infection had damaged one of his valves. He recovered to play basketball as a senior at Omaha Central and then at Creighton before he had to give up the sport in December 2012 because of an accelerated heartbeat. Packers to meet Oak Hill in 2015 Heartland Hoops Omaha South has verbally agreed to play Virginia national power Oak Hill Academy in the feature game Feb. 14, 2015, of the Heartland Hoops Classic boys basketball showcase event in Grand Island. Heartland Hoops organizer Tino Martinez of Grand Island said he expects South to return its game contract this week. Oak Hill, which lost to Omaha Central in Grand Island in 2013, agreed earlier this year to make a return appearance. South was No. 1 in the state when it lost in triple overtime to Norfolk in a ﬁrst-round game in the 2014 Class A state tournament. Martinez said he’ll announce complete pairings once all matchups are set for the daylong event at the Heartland Event Center. BASEBALL Wayne State notches upset during NSIC tournament SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Wayne State shocked regular-season champion Minnesota State 2-1 in the Northern Sun baseball tournament on Wednesday. The Wildcats (26-22), who last weekend lost four games to the third-ranked Mavericks, advance to the winners’ bracket semiﬁnals at 2 p.m. Thursday against Winona State. The Wildcats escaped a basesloaded jam in the bottom of the ninth to hold on for the win. VOLLEYBALL Husker schedule includes big-name opponents LINCOLN — Nebraska, which BREAKING BRAD LAMPOONING THE LATEST SPORTS NEWS. BY BRAD DICKSON Donald Trump wants to buy the Buffalo Bills and keep the team in Buffalo. That’s the good news, Buffalo. The bad news: He’ll be changing the team’s name to the Trump Titans. OMAHA WORLD-HERALD NHL PLAYOFFS returns ﬁve regular starters from last year’s club that reached the NCAA regional ﬁnal, will face three of last season’s ﬁnal four participants and play 13 matches against teams that qualiﬁed for last year’s NCAA tournament. Nebraska’s schedule, which was announced Wednesday, opens by hosting Florida State and Stanford in the AVCA Showcase at the Devaney Center from Aug. 29 to 31. After not playing a regularseason match against each other the last two seasons, Nebraska and Creighton will meet for the ﬁrst time since 2011 when the Huskers host the Bluejays at the Devaney Center on Sept. 17. See the full schedule in Scoreboard, Page 3C. SOFTBALL 7 Huskers named All-Big Ten; Revelle tabbed coach of year LINCOLN — Seven Nebraska softball players and coach Rhonda Revelle were honored Wednesday by the Big Ten. Revelle was named the Big Ten coach of the year for the ﬁrst time. She has been tabbed coach of the year four times while leading Nebraska in three conferences — Big Eight, Big 12 and Big Ten. Senior twins Tatum and Taylor Edwards and senior Hailey Decker were named ﬁrst-team selections, while sophomores Alicia Armstrong and Emily Lockman and freshman MJ Knighten were second-team selections. Junior co-captain Mattie Fowler, who suffered a seasonending injury in the 11th game of the season, was Nebraska’s sportsmanship award honoree. In other news: » Three University of Nebraska at Omaha softball players were named to the All-Summit League ﬁrst team on Wednesday. Ace Dana Elsasser, ﬁrst baseman Amber Lutmer and outﬁelder Allie Mathewson were selected to the team by league coaches. » Bellevue and Concordia will head to Shawnee, Oklahoma, next week for the NAIA softball national championship opening round. The Bruins will open play at 2 p.m. Monday against No. 15 Belhaven (Miss.) University. The Bulldogs play sixth-ranked St. Gregory’s (Okla.) at 5 p.m. Morningside College will face second-ranked Louisiana StateAlexandria at 2:30 p.m. Monday in Columbia, Missouri. GOLF UNK’s Colgate ﬁnishes ﬁrst at NCAA regional The University of Nebraska at Kearney’s Michael Colgate won the NCAA Central/Midwest Regional tournament Wednesday in Eureka, Missouri. Colgate, a sophomore from Sarasota, Florida, shot a threeround score of 212. Colgate advances to the NCAA Division II national tournament May 19 to 23 in Allendale, Michigan. He’s the ﬁrst Loper to qualify for the D-II nationals. In other news: » Midland, headed to the NAIA national golf tournament next week in Daytona Beach, Florida, placed four people on the AllGPAC team. Clint Kracl, Renen Sahr and Brady Vancura are on the ﬁrst team, with Preston Walford honorable mention. Nick Swaney is coach of the year. The Bellevue men and women also advanced to nationals. Doane’s Jonas Christensen will participate as an individual. The women’s tournament is at Wilderness Ridge in Lincoln on May 20. » Nebraska Wesleyan’s Rory Doll is the GPAC golfer of the year after claiming overall medalist honors for the GPAC qualiﬁers with a 72-hole total of 297. He’s qualiﬁed for the Division III tournament starting May 13 at Grandover Resort in Greensboro, North Carolina. His team didn’t earn an at-large bid for the ﬁrst time in 10 seasons. Compiled from press services and local reports. Dean Blais’ new contract pays him almost $1.3 million over four years. In contrast, over a four-year period, members of the Nebraska Legislature will earn $48,000. The UNO hockey coach earns about 27 times what our legislators do. Yeah, that sounds about right. Miami Marlins pitcher Brad Hand enters games to Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball.” Isn’t attendance at Marlins games bad enough without this? For Brad’s latest musings, go to Omaha.com/Dickson PenguinstakethirdstraightfromRangers NEW YORK (AP) — Brandon Sutter scored a short-handed goal to break a second-period tie, and the Pittsburgh Penguins moved within one win of the Eastern Conference ﬁnals with a 4-2 victory over the New York Rangers on Wednesday night. Pittsburgh, which has won three straight following a series-opening loss, can advance with a Game 5 victory at home Friday night. Evgeni Malkin scored at 2:31, and Jussi Jokinen made it 3-1 at 7:02 of the third before the teams traded late goals. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 13 shots. The only negative for the Penguins was that Fleury allowed a goal for the ﬁrst time in three games. Carl Hagelin’s tying tally in the second period was the Rangers’ ﬁrst goal in 145 minutes, 30 seconds of playing time. Mats Zuccarello backhanded in a goal with 6:53 left to cut the Rangers’ deﬁcit to 3-2 on FLYERS NAME HEXTALL GM, HOLMGREN PRESIDENT Ron Hextall has been promoted to general manager by the Philadelphia Flyers and Paul Holmgren was elevated to president. Hextall is Philadelphia’s all-time winningest goalie and served as assistant GM last year. Holmgren replaced Bob Clarke as GM during the 2006-07 season and led the Flyers to within two games of the Stanley Cup title in 2010. only their second shot of the third, but Chris Kunitz restored Pittsburgh’s two-goal edge 57 seconds later. Henrik Lundqvist made 23 saves in the loss. The weary Rangers played for the sixth time in nine nights, and not even a full day of rest on Tuesday or the return of forward Chris Kreider helped them. Kreider played for the ﬁrst time since breaking his left hand a month ago. Jokinen, who has an eightgame points streak, scored his insurance goal with a ﬂip shot that struck the right leg of Rangers defenseman Marc Staal and bounded past Lundqvist. Pittsburgh had regained the lead late in the second period by taking advantage of New York’s inept power play. Not only did the Rangers fail to score for the 36th consecutive time on the power play, they fell behind for the second time. In what was shaping up to be the Rangers’ best second period of the series, New York threw all the momentum back to the Penguins when Sutter scored with 1:33 left. The Rangers turned over the puck shortly after a drop pass in the neutral zone. Brian Gibbons streaked in alone and had his shot stopped by Lundqvist, but the rebound sat in front. Sutter swooped in to knock in his fourth goal of the postseason to put Pittsburgh back in front. The Rangers broke out of their scoring drought 4:30 into the second when Ryan McDonagh passed the puck from his end into the neutral zone to Hagelin, who took off with a burst of speed, split the defense, and snapped his third goal of the playoffs past Fleury to tie it. It was New York’s ﬁrst goal since Derick Brassard’s overtime winner in Game 1. Any early lift the Rangers got from the return of Kreider was lost when Malkin gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead. New York contributed greatly as a turnover by defenseman Anton Stralman started the play. The Penguins pressured and moved the puck freely. Sidney Crosby got it to the right of Lundqvist and sent a pass across the slot — that slid past Kunitz and somehow eluded Staal — onto the stick of Malkin, who turned and snapped in a backhander for his ﬁfth of the playoffs on Pittsburgh’s ﬁrst shot. NBA PLAYOFFS Hibbert’s big effort propels Pacers INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Big Roy came up with a big answer for his critics and his teammates Wednesday night. He played like an All-Star when the Pacers really needed it. After 48 hours of questions and criticism, Roy Hibbert scored a season-high 28 points, grabbed nine rebounds, blocked two shots and altered a handful of others to help the Pacers get even in the Eastern Conference semiﬁnals with an 86-82 victory over Washington. Hibbert sounded more relieved than redeemed. “David (West) always talks to me about being the person that rescues yourself when you’re in the middle of the ocean,” Hibbert said after Indiana tied the best-of-seven series at 1-1. “There’s nobody who can throw a lifesaver or a rope out to help you. So I had to do it myself.” The next step is proving he can play this way again Friday when Washington hosts Game 3. Hibbert went into Wednesday with a combined total of 37 points and 24 rebounds in Indiana’s ﬁrst eight playoff games. Twice in the previous four he failed to score a point or grab a rebound. Beleaguered Pacers fans wanted Hibbert benched. Frustrated teammates talked publicly and privately about needing more from their 7-foot-2 center. Critics turned Hibbert into the butt of jokes, and on the Internet, some even tried to explain Hibbert’s incredible disappearing act with unseemly speculation. After talking to his college coach, John Thompson III, and Colts linebacker Robert Mathis, a close friend, Hibbert blocked out the noise, focused on basketball and fueled the decisive 6-0 run late in the fourth quarter. It was enough to put repeated smiles on Hibbert’s face, even if he considers it only a start. “I just want to string a few games together,” he said. “Consistency hasn’t been my biggest friend this year. I’m going to try to continue to play aggressive, and I’m going to try to control the things I can control. I can’t control play calls, but I can control how hard I play, how fast I run down the court and how well I play defense.” George Hill ﬁnished with 14 points, Paul George had 11 points, six rebounds and four assists, and Lance Stephenson added 12 points, seven rebounds and ﬁve assists. And for the ﬁrst time this postseason, the Pacers held an opponent to fewer than nine 3-pointers. Washington ﬁnished 5 of 21 from behind the arc, the lowest percentage (23.8) in the playoffs this year. Much of the credit went to Hibbert, who helped open up the offensive lanes for his teammates and protected the T H E A S S O C I AT E D P R E S S Indiana’s Roy Hibbert, center, had struggled throughout the playoffs. But in Game 2 against Washington, he helped the Pacers even the series by ﬁnishing with 28 points, nine rebounds and two blocked shots. RESULTS TUESDAY Indiana 86, Washington 82 » Series tied 1-1 L.A. Clippers at Oklahoma City, late » Clippers lead series 1-0 Saturday Miami at Brooklyn, 7 p.m. San Antonio at Portland, 9:30 p.m. SUMMARY WEDNESDAY PACERS 86, WIZARDS 82 Rebounds: Washington 50 (Gortat 11), Indiana 44 (Hibbert 9). Assists: Washington 20 (Wall 8), Indiana 17 (Stephenson 5). SUMMARY TUESDAY SPURS 116, TRAIL BLAZERS 92 Thursday Brooklyn at Miami, 6 p.m. » Heat lead series 1-0 Portland at San Antonio, 8:30 p.m. » Spurs lead series 1-0 Friday Indiana at Washington, 7 p.m. Oklahoma City at L.A. Clippers, 9:30 p.m. Washington ...................................23 22 19 18—82 At Indiana......................................23 20 25 18—86 W: Ariza 2-8 0-0 6, Nene 7-14 0-4 14, Gortat 10-15 1-2 21, Wall 2-13 2-2 6, Beal 7-15 1-2 17, Gooden 2-4 1-2 5, Webster 2-4 0-0 5, Booker 1-1 0-0 2, Miller 3-6 0-0 6, Temple 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 36-80 5-12 82. I: George 5-13 1-2 11, West 3-8 3-4 9, Hibbert 10-13 8-8 28, G.Hill 6-12 1-2 14, Stephenson 3-12 4-4 12, Mahinmi 3-4 0-0 6, Turner 0-0 0-0 0, Watson 2-5 0-0 5, Scola 0-4 1-1 1, Copeland 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 32-72 18-21 86. Portland................................16 23 26 27— 92 At San Antonio.....................29 36 25 26—116 P: Batum 3-12 0-0 7, Aldridge 12-25 8-9 32, Lopez 2-5 6-7 10, Lillard 6-15 5-6 17, Matthews 2-6 4-5 8, Williams 3-11 0-0 6, Robinson 0-0 2-2 2, Wright 0-0 1-2 1, Barton 3-4 0-0 9. Totals 31-82 26-31 92. SA: K.Leonard 6-13 3-5 16, Duncan 5-9 2-2 12, Splitter 2-6 1-1 5, Parker 13-24 6-7 33, Ginobili 0-6 2-2 2, Diaw 2-3 1-2 6, Baynes 5-7 0-0 10, Mills 3-5 3-3 10, Belinelli 7-9 2-2 19, Joseph 1-2 1-1 3. Totals 44-87 21-25 116. Rebounds: P 53 (Aldridge 14), SA 50 (Duncan 11). Assists: P 9 (Williams 4), SA 21 (Parker 9). rim well enough that Indiana could spread out and defend the perimeter. “He’s got our attention now,” Washington’s Drew Gooden said. “We’ve got to be focused on guarding the Roy Hibbert we know.” It was a lost opportunity for the Wizards, who had won their ﬁrst four playoff games on the road — three at Chicago and Monday night at Indy — and could have gone home with a commanding 2-0 lead. They had chances. Washington led by as many as six early in the third quarter and rallied in the fourth to take a 77-74 lead with 5:01 to go before Hibbert and George scored six straight to give the Pacers the lead for good. Marcin Gortat ﬁnished with 21 points and 11 rebounds. Bradley Beal had 17 points and Nene added 14. “He came out with a lot of intensity and established position,” Beal said. “We didn’t play our best game. We didn’t shoot the ball and we didn’t defend like we know we’re capable.” CONFERENCE SEMIFINALS NU basketball: Two wing players scheduled to visit Continued from Page 1 Now, things have changed. “He’s really talented,” Lindsted said. “But he’s just getting exposed to a higher level of play. He needs some time, so the junior college route will really help him.” Nebraska remains strongly interested in Pinder, Lindsted said. Before committing to NU, Pinder had offers from Auburn, New Mexico and St. Mary’s, with more power conference schools such as Louisville, Indiana and Minnesota looking to get involved. Husker assistant Chris Harriman was a teammate of Pinder’s father, Kendal, on an Australian pro team and got to know Keanu at an early age. Kendal Pinder played collegiately at North Carolina State. As for the 2014 class, Nebraska has two scholarships left and two prospects making visits. Jordan Cornish, a 6-6 wing from New Orleans, visited Wake Forest last week. He is set to visit NU on Monday and Tuesday, then UNLV on May 16-18. He tweeted he will decide among those three schools on May 20. Cornish averaged 20.9 points a game at Brother Martin High. He signed a letter of intent with Tennessee last November, but was released from it when the Volunteers changed coaches. The other scheduled visitor is 6-6 wing Ricky Kreklow, a oneyear transfer from California with immediate eligibility. Kreklow, son of Missouri volleyball coach Wayne Kreklow, played his ﬁrst season at Missouri, then spent two injury-plagued seasons at Cal. Contact the writer: 402-444-1024, [email protected] twitter.com/leebeeowh