Nebraska Baseball Squanders Game to Omaha 6-5

It was finally baseball weather in Lincoln. 84 degrees at first pitch, a blistering warm wind blowing out to left, but it still took a while for the hometown boys to warm up.

With freshman Caleb Clark on the bump for Nebraska, trying to get himself right after an up and down first half of the season, but he didn’t make it long. In the top of the first, Clark got two quick outs. He then pitched around Omaha third baseman Mike Boeve, with good reason, as Boeve hits over .400. The next batter hit a hard line drive to right which outfielder Charlie Fischer dove for and missed which gave Omaha an RBI triple and a 1-0 lead.

Maverick starting pitcher had the Husker offense on their heels all game. He gave up a leadoff single to Brice Matthews who was caught stealing, and that was the only hit he gave up in his 3 innings of work.

Omaha was right back at it, pushing across an unearned run with a sac fly to right in the bottom of the 2nd. In the 3rd, Clark gave up a leadoff single, and then Boeve hit a towering fly ball to left that took a ride in the jet stream as Husker left fielder Gabe Swansen kept floating back and towards the fair pole until he ran out of real estate and the ball just cleared the fence for a 2-run home run and a 4-0 Omaha lead though 3.

The Huskers would give up another run as Omaha hit back to back singles to lead off the 5th. Another sac fly to right field brought in Boeve, again, 5-0 Mavericks. That seemed to be the point the Big Red offense came to life. After a Dylan Carey single, Brice Matthews reached 2nd on a fielder choice and an error on the throw to first. Casey Burnham hit a double to bring Matthews in, but Nebraska couldn’t get another run across, eventually leaving 2 runners on.

Drew Christo made his first appearance in a while, throwing a 1-2-3 inning in the top of the 6th, giving the momentum right back to the offense. The offense answered as Garrett Anglim reached base by being hit by pitch, bringing up Gabe Swansen. Swansen hit a towering fly ball that was a no doubter with the wind blowing the way it was. Nebraska had cut the lead to 5-3.

Shay Schanaman was inserted for Christo and shut out Omaha through the 7th, 8th and 9th innings, leaving it up to the offense to claw back into it. Garrett Anglim did his part, not only reaching base for the 3rd time of the game, but trotting around them with his line drive home run in the 8th. The Omaha lead was down to 5-4.

The bottom of the 9th was wild. With 1 out, Brice Matthews was hit by a pitch, putting Nebraska’s best base runner on as the potential tying run. Casey Burnham then hit his second double of the game. Omaha intentionally walked Max Anderson to load the bases. Fischer then hit a ground ball to first base, which the first baseman threw to second, and the return throw was beaten out by Fischer by a hair, confirmed by replay (seriously, check it out below)

. Matthews scored on the play, making it 5-5.

Following a leadoff walk, Omaha hit back to back infield singles, the second of which took a wild hop and may have even hit the runner off of first base, but was deemed not a reviewable play. As they have done all game with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs, Omaha hit a sac fly to right, and took the lead 6-5. Nebraska couldn’t muster even a base runner in the bottom of the inning, giving the Mavericks their second win against Nebraska and therefore the win of the stretched out season series.

Nebraska took too long to get things going and had 11 Ks to Omaha’s 6. Combine that with Omaha’s ability to have 6 productive outs to the Huskers 1, and that shows you the minor differences between winning and losing these close games. Also, though they may not have been official errors on the scoreboard, the combination of errors and mental errors allowed 3 of the 6 Maverick runs to cross the plate.

Nebraska has a lot of teams with RPIs like this Omaha team coming up on its schedule and can’t afford to lose them if they want to keep their postseason hopes alive. The two teams meet again for the final game of the series on April 25th in Omaha. Nebraska next hosts the Northwestern Wildcats for a 3 game series starting on Friday, April 14th at 6:05 pm.