Wow! What a ball game!
This Nebraska team really is special! If you are just tuning in to this team, we’ve seen what happened to day all season. Today, they got up big, lost the lead to a bunch of scrappers from Iowa, and then exploded to take it back. That who this 2026 Nebraska baseball team is. Never, never count them out.
Iowa put their best pitcher, Maddux Freese, on the mound today with the hope of shutting down the Cornhusker offense that caught fire late in the game last night. Though he got
through the first inning facing the minimum, Nebraska put a run on the board in the second, sending seven runners to the plate. In the third, they drove him from the game.
Nebraska struck first in the bottom of the second starting with a lead-off double by Case Sanderson. He scored easily as Bellevue boy Drew Grego drove a single to leftfield. More damage could have been done as they loaded the bases, but couldn’t get one more hit to blow it open.
Ty Horn returned to his familiar starting role and threw a solid six innings, and wasn’t hit hard until the fifth. He consistently started ahead in the count, mixing a 95-mph fastball with a fall-off-the-table breaking pitch that for the most part kept the Hawkeyes from barreling up and driving the ball. He worked around a little bit of trouble in the third, but helped himself out by picking off Kooper Schulte at first base when the Hawkeyes had runners on the corners with one out.
Big things happened in the bottom of the third. Jeter Worthley and Dylan Carey led off with back-to-back singles and then Freese walked Case Sanderson to load them up with no outs. After a Drew Grego pop out, Lincoln’s own Will Jesske hacked a pitch high in the strike zone that flew into the fans stretched out on blankets on the leftfield berm. Grand slam! Nebraska up 5-0.
After Horn sat the black and gold down in order in the fourth, Big Red tallied two more runs off reliever Brady Ferguson. The Iowa righty hit lead-off man Mac Moyer. Two pitches later, Jeter Worthley poked one over the first base bag that rolled all the way into the rightfield corner. Moyer scored and the speedy Worthley slid into third with an RBI triple. Shaken, Fergusen threw the next pitch wide and Worthley scampered home, sliding under the tag to make it 7-0 Nebraska.
Iowa’s Jaixon Frost put a little chink in Horn’s armor in the top of the fifth inning with a lead-off home run for the Hawkeye’s first run of the weekend. Horn struck out the next two batters and got the next one to ground out to Stokes at second base. After four-and-a-half, Nebraska led 7-1.
It appeared that Horn was tiring in the sixth when he gave up another solo home run with two outs to Miles Risley. At that point he had thrown over 90 pitches. After getting the final out that would be the end of the day for him, which was punctuated by six strike outs, but more important, no walks and no hit batters. In fact, he has not given up a walk since April 10 against Oregon.
The game took a big turn in the top of the seventh once Horn was gone. Cooper Katskee came in and was not good. He faced five batters, gave up two hits, hit one batter, walked one, struck out one, and gave up three runs. All of a sudden, it is a 7-5 game and Iowa is back in it. Jalen Worthley came on to get an out, but gave up a hit, leading Coach Rob Childress to call for J’Shawn Unger.
Kooper Schulte worked Unger to a full count, fouled off three pitches and was then plunked in the back to once again load the bases. On the next pitch, a ball in the dirt squirted past Worthley, and allowed pinch-hitter Mitch Wood to score. After getting Risley to fly out to end the inning, Nebraska clung to a one-run lead.
The Cornhuskers got one back in the bottom of the seventh. After rapping a single to start off the inning, Drew Grego eventually scored on a Jett Buck sacrifice fly. That tenuous two-run lead disappeared with one swing of the bat in the top of the eighth.
Unger issued a one out walk to Frost. Two batters later, Ben Swails drove a 2-2 Unger pitch into the pine trees in straightaway centerfield to tie the game 8-8. After the home run, ahead in the count, Unger hit pinch-hitter Jaylen Ziegler. He then scored the go-ahead run on a Schulte single.
Iowa added their fourth run of the inning on an RBI double by Risley. That left runners on second and third still with two outs and in came Colin Nowaczyk to try and get that elusive third out. Hawkeye Caleb Wulf then placed a beautiful bunt reminiscent of the on by Rhett Stokes last night to score Gable Mitchell. Nebraska finally got the third out on a bang-bang play at the plate that was held up on review.
Iowa had turned the tables on Nebraska scoring nine runs in the seventh and eighth innings and held a three-run lead, 11-8.
But hold on!
While Iowa is a team that is known for putting pressure on other defenses and scrapping to the very end, this year’s Nebraska Cornhusker team has made a living out of late game theatrics. Sure enough, Bolt and crew still had some magic in the bottom of the eighth when they sent 13 batters to the plate.
Mac Moyer led off with a single and hustled to third base as Trey Fikes hit a single behind him. Fikes entered the game as a defensive replacement for Jeter Worthley and kept his bat hot from last night. That brought Carey to the plate and he hit a towering three-run homer to centerfield to tie the game at 11-11, and they weren’t finished.
Pitcher Joe Husak hit Sanderson, who advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Drew Grego. That put the go-ahead run in scoring position. Max Buettenback came in to DH and ripped a single up the middle to score Sanderson. Nebraska was on top 12-11.
Joshua Overbeek hit a little dribbler that basically served as a sacrifice bunt that moved Buettenback to second. Husak then walked Jett Buck and hit Rhett Stokes to once again load the bases. Mac Moyer then hit a sharp grounder past the shortstop to score Buettenback. Up came Trey Fikes who smacked his second single of the game and drove in two more runs. Nebraska was ahead 15-11. They weren’t done yet, as they loaded the bases once again before Brolan Frost, the third pitcher of the inning and first lefty Iowa put on the mound all weekend got the final out thanks to Sports Center worthy diving, flying grab of a Case Sanderson line drive by Jaixen Frost.
Tucker Timmerman was called on to close out the game, though everyone in the stadium was on pins and needles having already seen Iowa put up big crooked numbers. He kept the ball down in the zone and let his defense work behind him before ending the game striking out Ziegler. Ball game! Nebraska 15, Iowa 11.
Notes:
- After last night’s game, Coach Will Bolt acknowledge that there is a bit of a dilemma at the catcher position. Known as a very good receiver of the ball, Trey Fikes showed his offensive chops with three hit balls off his bat last night over 100-mph, including a double and a home run, and then two more hits and RBI today. It wasn’t that many games back that Worthley had a five-for-five day, and in this one he had two hits, including a triple.
- Having watched this sport for over sixty years, and coached for over half of that time, I find it incredibly hard to watch a player struggle. Cooper Katskee was an all-conference pitcher last season and came to Nebraska to be one of the weekend starters. He was pulled from his first start due to illness, but seemed to do well early on in the midweek games and out of the bullpen. However, ever since he was moved to a weekend spot, it has fallen apart for him. The young man hasn’t forgotten how to pitch, and frankly, his confidence has to be in the basement. I don’t know if we’ll see him again this season because there are not that many games left to help him rebuild that confidence. I hate to see this.
- Returning to the I Haven’t Seen That Before world, with a runner on first base and less than one out, Iowa played their first baseman in front of the runner four to five-feet off the base. Every other team I’ve watched has the first baseman on the bag. The Iowa pitcher threw over three or four times with Drew Grego on base and there was no way that the first baseman would be able to make a tag. That’s interesting as well from the perspective that Grego is a threat to steal a base. No clue why they did this.
- And another I Haven’t Seen That Before. I cannot remember ever seeing two teams bat around the order in the same inning. Iowa sent ten to the plate in the top of the eighth and Nebraska sent 13.
- My third basemen and small-town Iowa native bias has to point out how incredible Hawkeye Jaixen Frost played the hot corner so far. He grew up about 15-miles from where I lived for nine years of my life in a really small town and his story is like a lot of small-town Nebraska boys that have gone on to stardom at the state university. He will play pro ball at some point, and to watch him now as an old third baseman is a joy. The kid can play.
