With the help of some weather, great pitching, and hitting that has helped carry the team all year, your Nebraska Cornhusker Baseball team took all three games from the Michigan State Spartans at McLane Stadium in East Lansing this weekend. The sweep sets up a showdown with Illinois for the final regular season set, where the second spot in the Big Ten Tournament will be up for grabs.
The Huskers (35-17 overall, 16-5 B1G) gave up 3 runs total in the series and never let the Spartans (26-23, 8-13 B1G) get a lead at all during the three game series.
Saturday:
Chance Sinclair set the tone with 7 innings of 6 hits allowed and 2 strikeouts, while Pat Kelly went 2-3 with 3 RBI's as the Huskers took Game 1 with a 5-3 victory.
Nebraska opened scoring with 4 runs in the top of the 3rd inning. Steven Reveles and Ryan Boldt opened the inning with singles, and Jake Placzek plated the first run with an infield single down the first base line. Michael Pritchard worked a walk to load the bases before Kelly came up and cleaned off the bases with a double.
Michigan State got 3 on the board in the bottom of the 5th after being helped by a Blake Headley throwing error. Sinclair gave up 2 more runs in the inning but got the heart of the MSU order out to keep the lead.
Pat Kelly scored an insurance run from his double and a Fielder's Choice by Tanner Lubach in the 8th inning. Zack Hirsch and Josh Roeder let up a few hits, but no runs as they closed out the victory.
Sunday:
The pitching theme continued on Sunday as Aaron Bummer allowed 1 run on 4 hits over 7 plus innings, and Michael Pritchard used his #BOOMSTICK to help Nebraska clinch the series with a 4-1 victory on Mothers Day.
Nebraska opened their scoring in the second inning, as Reveles scored Pat Kelly on a groundout to make it 1-0. After Michigan State tied it at 1, there was no more scoring till the sixth where Jake Placzek got a 1 out walk before Pritchard shipped one over the right field wall to give Nebraska a 3-1 lead. Nebraska would tack on an extra run with Reveles scoring on a Ben Miller RBI single.
However, the play of the weekend happened in the top half of the 8th. Sparty had put 2 on and chased Bummer out of the game when Zack Hirsch came on to pitch to Blaise Salter...
Austin Darby is a sick thief and I love it.
A quiet 9th by Josh Roeder and Nebraska had the series win.
Monday:
Getaway day for the final game of the series was a rain soaked affair where Kyle Kubat went 6 1/3 innings of seven hit, one run ball and Blake Headley had 2 RBI's as Nebraska scored their fourth B1G series sweep and seventh straight victory overall with a 4-1 win in 7 innings.
The game was delayed for over a hour because of weather, but that didn't cool down Husker bats. Nebraska came storming out in the top of the first when Ryan Boldt and Placzek got on base to start the game. Three batters later, Blake Headley opened the scoring with a RBI single, and Placzek scored on a overthrow to make it 2-0 Nebraska. Headley moved to third on the play, then scored on a Lubach single to open the game 3-0 Big Red.
In the third inning, Headley again drove a run in as he singled to score Pritchard to make it 4-0 Nebraska.
The lone mistake for Kubat all day was a HR allowed to Spartans 1B Ryan Krill in the bottom of the 7th. That chased Kyle, but Bob Greco came and got the final 2 outs of the inning. That happened to be the last inning of the day, as the game was delayed in the bottom of the 8th and called then due to Nebraska's travel schedule.
The Huskers now have 4 games left on the season, which will continue tomorrow night at TD Ameritrade park as they take on the Creighton Bluejays for the final time in a make-up game. There will be a decent crowd there.
Nearly 10,000 tickets have been sold for Tuesday night's Nebraska at Creighton Baseball game. 7pm first pitch at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha.
— Rob Anderson (@_robanderson) May 12, 2014