Sometimes in the midst of a barrage, you notice the little things.
But the lead today on a sunny, but cool and windy Minnesota afternoon was the Nebraska Cornhuskers waiting two innings, then unleashing the full force of their offensive potential on the non-Sydney Schwartz portion of the Minnesota pitching staff. They scored 2, 5 then 10 runs in the 3rd through 5th innings for a resounding 17-2 run-rule victory to capture yet another Big 10 series victory.
On a day when both diamond teams were blasting
the opposition – the men beat Southern Cal 12-2 in 7 innings – the depth of the defeat was driven home in the middle of pitcher Alexis Jensen’s at-bat in the 5th which ended up in her being plunked. Minnesota’s coach Piper Ritter came out to a mound for a chat and first base coach Liv Ferrell trotted over to drop off a couple armloads of pads, gloves, etc to fellow Assistant Coach Diane Miller which had been left with Liv at first in the midst of that 10-run onslaught.
I’m telling you – that pile of equipment was a little jarring. Especially considering they would go on to score 6 more runs.
First off, let’s get Alexis Jensen out of the way before another fine performance gets lost in this blowout. She threw 4 innings before being relieved by Kylee Magee, which was more an act of mercy on Rhonda Revelle’s part as well as the multitude of pinch hitters she sent to the plate in the 5th inning.
She allowed 3 hits while striking out 4 and walking only 1 on the way to her 18th victory of the season. At the plate, she reached base twice in three tries drawing a walk to go with her being donked by a pitch in the 5th.
The rest of the hitters? I have a strong desire to make it home before dark, so I’ll just touch on the high points here.
Let’s start with those blonde grand slam sisters, Hannah Coor and Jesse Farrell, who went a combined 3-for-5 to go the 8 runs driven in on those two blasts. It was the second homer of the weekend for Coor and there’s one more game left.
In addition to Coor, Hannah Camenzind, Ava Kuszak, Kacie Hoffman and Sammie Bland also had multi-hit games, with Kuszak going 2-for-4 with 3 RBI’s. And to show that Revelle wasn’t trying to dole out unnecessary punishment, she did send 15 batters to the plate on the day and got in a couple of pinch runners to boot.
The Minnesota folks were pretty good-natured about it and we should be welcomed back tomorrow for the final contest of the weekend. First pitch is scheduled for 12:00pm CST, once again streamed on B1G+ and aired in the Huskers Radio Network. See you then.
Note: Ava Kuszak was hit in the foot in the 4th inning and left the game for pitch runner Skarlett Jones with the assumption in the press box being she would not return and Jones would be playing shortstop. However, Kuszak returned to the game. The only reason this is significant is that Jones now loses her redshirt because in softball it’s still burned once you take the field in a game.
