Nebraska

How to Watch Nebraska Softball vs Southern Miss, Bethune-Cookman: Preview, Breakdown, Streaming

Published

1 year ago

February 7, 2025

How to Watch Nebraska Softball vs Southern Miss, Bethune-Cookman: Preview, Breakdown, Streaming

Nebraska softball started the 2025 season with a bang beating No. 6 Tennessee 7-1 at the NFCA Leadoff Classic in Clearwater, Fla., Thursday night.

Junior Jordy Bahl not only returned from a season-ending ACL injury in 2024, but pitched a gem and hit her first-career collegiate home run.

Bahl scattered five hits in the circle while striking out seven across seven innings. At the plate, she was 1-for-3 with the homer and two runs batted in.

Sophomore third baseman Samantha Bland went 3-for-3 with two RBIs, while Tennessee’s starter, Karlyn Pickens, struck out 11 but ran into trouble in the fifth and was replaced in the sixth.

Jordy Bahl was key on both sides of the ball for Nebraska in the Huskers’ season-opening win over Tennessee, with a 2-run home run and a complete game win in the circle to her credit. pic.twitter.com/Fg7mtQiC3X
— Justin McLeod (@justfactsmaam) February 7, 2025

The Huskers play two on Friday against Southern Miss and Bethune-Cookman, here is everything you need to know before the first pitch.

How to Follow Along

Nebraska head coach Rhonda REVELLE after her team’s season-opening win over Tennessee at the NFCA Leadoff Classic. pic.twitter.com/jND8nYh3xy
— Justin McLeod (@justfactsmaam) February 7, 2025

Southern Miss Scout

The Golden Eagles’ roster is an even mix of experience and fresh talent, with 15 returners and 15 newcomers, including nine first-year players — the most for the program since 2014.

Southern Miss finished last season 22-29 (10-14 Sun Belt) and secured a spot in the conference tournament for the second straight year, marking the program’s first back-to-back appearances since 2012-2013.

Head Coach: Natalie Poole

Poole enters her third season as head coach of Southern Miss Softball, leading the Golden Eagles to consecutive conference tournament appearances for the first time since 2012-2013.

In 2024, she guided the team to its first home conference series win in the Sun Belt, its first conference series sweep, and a victory over No. 24 Texas State — the program’s first win against a ranked opponent since 2022.

Before joining Southern Miss, Poole spent 11 seasons as Memphis’ head coach, becoming the second head coach in that program’s history.

Prior to her tenure at Memphis, Poole spent time coaching at her alma mater McNeese State and Georgia Southern.

2024 Record: 22-29, 10-14 Sun Belt

All-Time Series: Nebraska won the only meeting between the two in 2003 by a score of 5-0.

Key Departures: Hannah Borden, C

Two Golden Eagles received all-conference recognition last season, with returner Jana Lee earning Second Team All-Sun Belt honors and former graduate catcher Hannah Borden securing First Team All-Sun Belt and Third Team NFCA South Region accolades. Together, they totaled 100 hits, racking up 24 doubles, 23 home runs, and 77 RBIs.

Lee aims to build on a strong 2024 season, where she tallied a career-high 39 hits — third most on the team — while batting .320 with a .566 slugging percentage over 40 games. Her 15 home runs ranked fourth in the Sun Belt, and she also made an impact in the circle, appearing in 26 games and leading the pitching staff with nine wins and 40 strikeouts across 95 innings, including six conference victories.

Bethune-Cookman Scout

Bethune-Cookman finished the 2024 season with a 20-32 overall record but found success in SWAC play, posting a 16-8 conference mark. The Wildcats’ season came to an end in the SWAC Tournament with a 4-1 loss to Alabama State.

Head Coach: Laura Watten

Laura Watten, the winningest coach in Bethune-Cookman Athletics history, enters her 17th season at the helm of the Wildcats’ softball program. A three-time Coach of the Year across multiple conferences, she has guided numerous players to Player of the Year honors throughout her career.

In 2022, Watten led Bethune-Cookman to its first-ever SWAC Eastern Division title during the program’s debut season in the conference, following more than 30 years in the MEAC.

Heading into the 2024 season, she holds a 32-16 record in SWAC play and an all-time head coaching record of 785-706, including a 494-443 mark with the Wildcats. She is just six wins away from reaching 500 victories with Bethune-Cookman.

2024 Record: 20-32, 16-8 SWAC

All-Time Series: Nebraska leads the series 1-0.

Key Returners: Haylne Gonzalez, P/INF, Sr. | Jessica Alaan, INF/UT, So. | Thais Uyema, C/INF, Gr. | Briana Velazquez INF/ UT, R-Sr.

Key Additions: Emma Bradley-Tse, OF, Jr. | Molly Blackwood, INF, Fr.

Key Departures: Ciera Clark, 1B

Senior pitcher Halyne Gonzalez earned a spot on the SWAC Preseason First Team, while Jessica Alaan, Thais Uyema, and Briana Velazquez were named to the Preseason All-SWAC Second Team. Bethune-Cookman adds five newcomers to the 2025 roster, including four freshmen and one junior transfer.

The Wildcats return eight starters from last season’s lineup, along with seven additional letter-winners from a squad that finished third in the SWAC East. Velazquez, last year’s starting shortstop, posted a .325 batting average and hit one of the team’s three home runs. Kendall Macauley accounted for another, while Alaan led the team with 27 RBIs, finishing with 43 hits and a .287 batting average.

MORE: Nebrasketball Brunch Show: Can the Huskers Make it Four Straight Wins?

MORE: What If: The 1975 College Football Season

MORE: Why Did Nebraska Football Cancel The Spring Game?

MORE: Signee Analysis: Running Back Jamarion Parker

MORE: Signee Analysis: Running Back Conor Booth

Stay up to date on all things Huskers by bookmarking Nebraska Cornhuskers On SI, subscribing to HuskerMax on YouTube, and visiting HuskerMax.com daily.

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Nebraska

Bullerman follows a family legacy into Nebraska’s prairies

Published

6 hours ago

June 12, 2026

Press Room

Bullerman follows a family legacy into Nebraska’s prairies

Emma Bullerman is spending her summer riding around in fields with her dad, and she’s thrilled about it. It’s not just for fun, either — she’s interning for the Prairie Plains Resource Institute and working alongside her father to conserve Nebraska grasslands.

“Prairie Plains has literally been in my life since I was born. I guess you could say I’m a bit of a grasslands nepo baby,” Bullerman said. “My dad is the restoration director, so even as a kid I would be out helping him in the field.”

Today, Emma is taking a more active role in aiding her dad’s work to restore native prairies.

“A lot of my summer will be in the truck with him driving across Nebraska to collect the native grassland seeds that we put into our restoration sites,” she said. “Basically, I’m just learning the ropes of everything that goes into grassland restoration.”

As a teen, Bullerman thought she wanted to do anything but follow her dad’s footsteps. Eventually, a few stalled paths helped her rediscover her love for her hometown.

“In high school and coming into college, I really thought I wanted to leave Nebraska and do something totally different from my dad,” she said. “I tried a few other directions, but pretty quickly could tell that I wasn’t passionate about them. I took a semester off, and then my boss at Prairie Plains reached out about helping with social media.”

It didn’t take long for Bullerman to catch the bug for conservation work and switch her major to fisheries and wildlife, the same degree program her father graduated from in 1995. In fact, she is a fourth-generation Husker with strong ties to ag and food science. Her grandfather is Dr. Lloyd Bullerman, a former a professor of food science, microbiology and food safety at the university, and her aunt studied food science at NU as well.

Getting back to Prairie Plains in her early college years helped Bullerman realize that she, too, had a calling toward this field.

“Being out in the field with my dad one day, I had a moment where I was like, ‘Oh, this is what I’ve been looking for. This is what I want to do.’ Finding my way back has been really, really beautiful.”

Working with her dad, she’s is feeling better than ever about her direction, her hometown and her future in Nebraska.

“Doing this work and studying at UNL has given me a whole new perspective on the state,” she said. “I used to be someone who was like, ‘I want to get out of here after I graduate.’ Restoring prairies and traveling all over Nebraska has helped me see that it’s so beautiful here, I just didn’t take the time to see it before.”

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Nebraska

Data centers take center stage at North Omaha townhall

Published

16 hours ago

June 12, 2026

Press Room

Data centers take center stage at North Omaha townhall

The future of data centers in Nebraska took center stage at a North Omaha town hall Thursday evening.

The event was hosted by State Sens. Terrell McKinney and Ashlei Spivey, who alongside Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh sponsored a bill in the Nebraska Legislature that looked to help regulate data centers.

Parts of their bill were adopted and passed in LB1010, which requires reports on annual power usage, water usage and ownership.

“Having this passed in a package showed a lot of bipartisan work,” Spivey told a crowd of attendees at Nelson Mandela Elementary School.

The proposed regulations were shaped in part by Bold Nebraska, an advocacy group focused on eminent domain and clean energy. Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and founder of Bold Nebraska, said before the bill passed there were “zero laws on the books” to address a boom in data centers.

“If one is coming into the community, we wanted to make sure that there were some basic transparency things in place,” Kleeb said.

Political discussions around data centers heated up in recent months following reporting by the Flatwater Free Press that showed Google is considering a data center in Nebraska that could require more than three times the amount of power the entire city of Lincoln uses at peak demand in the summer.

The Nebraska Legislature recently passed another bill, LB1261, that allows private developers to build and own power plants to serve a large industrial customer, including data centers. That bill was proposed by the governor’s office and celebrated by Gov. Jim Pillen.

“Our state is once again taking a bold and strategic step – one that will create an environment that attracts business and multibillion dollar investment, while legally preserving Nebraska’s unique and consumer-friendly public power model,” Pillen said at the time.

At Thursday’s town hall, McKinney called LB1261 “the bogeyman bill.”

“It’s a bill that the governor pushed through the legislature to allow for data centers to create their own power,” McKinney said. “It’s a bill that I stood on the floor and said this is going to harm our communities.”

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Nebraska

Hundreds lose power across southeast Nebraska after Thursday morning storm

Published

1 day ago

June 11, 2026

Press Room

Hundreds lose power across southeast Nebraska after Thursday morning storm

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Hundreds of people are without power in southeast Nebraska after a severe storm passed through Thursday morning.

The Lincoln Electric System outage map showed 115 customers without power across the city at 11:36 a.m.

Norris Public Power District’s outage map also shows 45 customers affected by the storm. As of 11:36 a.m., there were nine active outages.

According to the Nebraska Public Power District outage map, 657 customers were affected by the storm. Most of the affected customers were near Plattsmouth in southeast Nebraska. As of 11:37 a.m., 27 customers remain without power.

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