Series Preview
Pennsylvania State Nittany Lions (8-18, 3-6 B1G) at #19 Nebraska Cornhuskers (23-6, 8-1 B1G)
Location: Hawks Field at Haymarket Park, Lincoln, NE
Dates: April 3rd-5th
Times (all CDT): Friday @ 6pm, Saturday @ 2pm, Sunday @ 12pm
Head Coaches: Mike Gambino (3rd season, 361-431) & Will Bolt (7th season, 193-132-1)
TV/Stream: All games on B1G+, Friday also on Nebraska Public Media
Radio: All Nebraska games on Huskers Radio Network, Huskers.com, Huskers App
After 2 seasons of being a hard out in the Big Ten Tournament, Penn State was picked to be one of the biggest movers in the conference this year. However, the season to this point has been a disappointment (including one of their Dollar Dog nights above against UCF having to be cancelled). The Nittany Lions have yet to win a single weekend series and have only been able to scratch together 3 wins in Big Ten play thus far, 1 each against Iowa, Purdue and Illinois.
Coach Mike Gambino left his alma mater of Boston College after their best season in decades to take a job at Penn State. He did that because of how little support he was getting at BC, including only being given 1 paid assistant, and saw that Penn State was finally starting to put more resources behind baseball and seemed ready to take the next step. The irony is Boston College enters the top 25 this week, while Penn State sits in a logjam tie in 11th place in the Big Ten.
Nebraska is trending in the opposite direction. The Huskers, winners of 18 of their last 19 have moved up to #19 in the country. They are beating teams they should beat, but that is hard to do constantly in baseball, no matter how talented a team is. All you have to do is look at the mid week records of the Huskers over the past few years, or look around college baseball right now to pick up on that. Style points no longer matter in mid-week games.
The Huskers have different people stepping up seemingly every game to make a difference. The biggest development over the streak may be figuring out the closer position. J’Shawn Unger has taken hold of it, and doesn’t seem to want to be anywhere else than on the mound with the game on the line. Nebraska needs to not look ahead to #15 Oregon and #12 USC, looming after Penn State, and pile up wins this weekend. You have to imagine guys like Dylan Carey, Josh Overbeek, Ty Horn and Tucker Timmerman wont let that happen.
Pitching Preview
Game 1: RHP Ty Horn (1-1, 3.31 ERA) vs. RHP Colin Fitzgerald (2-4, 5.79 ERA)
Game 2: RHP Carson Jasa (5-1, 4.11 ERA) vs. RHP Ben Hudson (1-5, 8.42 ERA)
Game 3: RHP Cooper Katskee (4-0, 2.56 ERA) vs. RHP Isaiah Shayter (1-4, 10.65 ERA)
After failing to qualify on multiple starts, Ty Horn finally picked up that elusive first win. He started off the game and series with a statement, striking out the first two batters and getting the third to an 0-2 count before a ground ball ended the first inning. It ended up being two of the weakest contacts on balls put in play that took him out of the game on back to back singles to start the 6th.
One swing in the 6th inning of Saturday’s game took Caron Jasa’s game from his most dominant of the year to down a couple notches. Prior to the 3 run home run on his final at bat, Jasa had tied a career high with 10 strikeouts. He’d sprinkled 3 hits, but also had the 5 walks. We kind of talked about that last week, Indiana likes to work deep into counts, and that set them up for a ton of strikeouts, but also allowed for a couple slip ups by Jasa. I wouldn’t get as down on the 5 walks as we would have earlier in the season.
With no slight to the work that Gavin Blachowicz turned in over the first half of the season, which was above and beyond what was expected, Cooper Katskee took his rightful place as the Sunday starter for the Huskers. Prior to his sickness the first week of the season, Katskee was the big offseason addition and expected to be the guy Coach Bolt wanted for his all important Championship Sunday starter. He turned in a quality start, and after the shaky 1st inning, really went on a tear. Thats why experience is good to have in the rotation.
We eluded to Penn State ace Colin Fitzgerald a couple weeks ago. He was one of the All Conference starting pitchers that left Maine via the portal and gutted their pitching staff. He has been Penn State’s best and most consistent pitcher this season. He got absolutely shelled by a good Texas Tech offense for 6 runs in less than an inning, but other than that has either had or been close to a quality start in his other 4 recent games. Purdue scored 9 on him in 5 innings in his last start (he didn’t pitch against Illinois last week), but 6 of those were unearned. Fitzgerald has 33 strikeouts in 28 innings, and has walked 13 batters.
Sophomore starter Ben Hudson originally went to where his former MLB playing dad Joseph played at West Virginia, and was very good on a Super Regional team as a freshman, but transferred to PSU to become a starter. March was not kind to Hudson. He gave up 25 runs in 14.1 innings, punctuated by 11 runs in 1.2 innings against Texas Tech. He has to be looking forward to April more than anyone. Isaiah Shayter is one of the more talented freshmen on the Penn State team. He was picked as the #2 pitcher in Pennsylvania and the #4 short stop. His numbers are not great in really any category this year, but they want to ride with him both out of necessity and to get him some experience for next year.
Scouting Report
The Nittany Lions’ offense is down in Michigan-State-Land, in 2nd to last place in the Big Ten. And unlike the teams around them, they really haven’t faced the best competition. So they don’t have that excuse, they are just not good. Two players are batting over .300, not .400 like Nebraska, but .300.
The PSU offense has one true weapon, and he’s a big one. Designated hitter Michael Anderson is putting up some big numbers, easpcially with very little support in front of him, and little protection behind him. Anderson spent his first 2 years at Rhode Island, and turned that into an opportunity to play at Arkansas. He never cracked through in Arkansas, playing in 4 games, so left for more playing time at Penn State.
Anderson is 2nd in the Big Ten to UCLA All-American Will Gasparino in home runs (11), slugging (.744) and OPS (1.236). He is batting a team leading .356. He is also leading the team in RBIs, but with the rest of the offense being less than stellar, it’s only a total of 29, a really small amount for having 11 home runs.
The Robin to Anderson’s Batman is third baseman Bryce Molinaro. You may remember him in 2024 when he was a redshirt freshman and absolutely instrumental in their run to the championship game. He was 3rd Team All B1G and made the All Tournament Team. Molinaro returns after being drafted by the Nationals in the 17th round of the draft last year, and is the only player to have started every game in 2026. He is batting .295 and is second on the team with 7 home runs and 20 RBIs.
Catcher Nate Voss was supposed to be a big part of this team both offensively and defensively, but was injured after playing only one game and was just announced this past week that his season was over. Another injury occurred to a major contributor earlier in the season in West Virginia transfer Spencer Barnett. Barnett had homered 3 times in the teams first 7 games, including the one he was injured in. But the slugger hasn’t homered since his first game back on March 11th, and only has 4 RBIs in that same time frame.
The Penn State pitching staff is struggling mightily. They are last in the Big Ten in ERA, walks per 9 innings, and batting average against, where hitters are batting .323 against them. They do have 3 pretty serviceable arms in their pen, starting with Kyle Emmons. Emmons leads the team in ERA at 3.72. Other than a 24-5 loss to Kansas State in which the entire pitching staff imploded, and a game against Iowa, he has only given up 1 earned run in the other 8 trips to the mound. He has 16 strikeouts and 7 walks in a bullpen leading 19.1 innings.
Two other pitchers have 10 appearances on the season, including Mason Horwat, who moved to the pen after starting in 2025. While having good stuff, he’s had a lot of trouble finding the strike zone this season, with more than a couple of appearances having thrown more balls than strikes. Horwat has thrown 16.2 innings with 12 strikeouts and 10 walks. Matthew VanOstenbridge is the third pitcher to make 10 appearances. He gave up 4 runs in that nightmare Kansas State game and then 2 more in his next game against Richmond, but has been serviceable since. The team isn’t afraid to use the lefty for just a left handed batter or two in a tight spot.
The Nittany Lions defense leaves a lot to be desired. They are 2nd worst in the Big Ten to only Michigan State in fielding percentage at 96.7%.
Series History
Nebraska owns a 19-2 record against Penn State all time, including a 13 game win streak currently. The last two meetings have been the Huskers eliminating the Nittany Lions from the Big Ten Tournament in the semifinals in 2025, and then that epic 2-1 victory in championship game in 2024. The last regular season series was a sweep (obviously) by Nebraska in Lincoln in 2023.
On Deck
- Devin Nunez broke his hamate bone in his wrist over the weekend. Thought to be an overuse issue verses a single incident. Minimum of 4-6 weeks of recovery, but often takes longer.
- Will Jesske is getting closer to a full time return. What will that mean for Jett Buck, Rhett Stokes, in the field or the DH position.
- Nebraska is off to a school record 12-0 start at home, and a 7-0 record in mid week games.
- Carson Jasa has 55 strikeouts prior to April 1st. This is the 5th time a Husker has done at least that many since 2000. Joba Chamberlain once, and the GOAT Shane Komine three times.
- Dylan Carey leads the Big Ten in hits, and tied for 4th nationally, with 48 and RBIs with 43. Mac Moyer is tied for 2nd place in the B1G with 46 hits.
