Series Preview
Maine Bears (2-13) at Nebraska Cornhuskers (11-5)
Location: Hawks Field at Haymarket Park, Lincoln, NE
Dates: March 13th-14th
Times (all CDT): Friday @ 6pm, Saturday **Double Header** @ 1pm and 4pm
Head Coaches: Nick Derba(9th season, 176-255) & Will Bolt (7th season, 181-131-1)
TV/Stream: B1G+
Radio: All Nebraska games on Huskers Radio Network, Huskers.com, Huskers App
It’s the one weekend a year we get to curse Wisconsin for not having a baseball team. Well, who am I kidding… we should do that every week. Them not having a team makes for an odd number of conference teams and gives a random break in conference play for teams to play a non conference foe. It’s hard to get a good team to come to town with conference play going in most other leagues. Oregon State last year was a a rare get with the collapse of the PAC-12 empire. This year the Maine Bears come to town.
Nebraska and Maine are going in two opposite directions. Nebraska hasn’t lost since returning home, going 6-0 against admittedly teams they should have gone 6-0 against. The pitching staff has been great, not allowing more than 4 earned runs in any of those games. The bats seem to be getting warm too. Different guys have been stepping up to either win games, or blow games open early, for back to back run rule victories for the Big Red. Its hard to see any of these trends reversing this weekend.
The Maine baseball program has had a pretty good baseball history. They had a run of 5 CWS appearances out of 6 years in the early 80s (7 CWS in total). They last made a regional in 2023 at Miami as a 4 seed and went 0-2. Their most famous baseball alum is Jeremy Pena, Houston Astros Gold Glove short stop and 2022 World Series MVP as a rookie taking over for Carlos Correa.
It’s been a rough start to 2026 for Maine. Things looked ok after the first day at the ballpark. They split a doubleheader with a good Duke team, losing 8-3 then winning 4-3. Since then, they have only a lone win against High Point (who was 1 run away from sweeping #9 Florida last weekend). They come into Lincoln on a 10 game losing streak. They haven’t played a game at home yet, and won’t until March 27th. They often take up residence in a state for a week and play multiple teams. They will do that again this week, playing Omaha on Monday before flying back to the northeast.
Pitching Probables
Game 1: RHP Ty Horn (0-0, 3.10 ERA) vs. RHP Jason Krieger (0-3, 8.85 ERA)
Game 2: RHP Carson Jasa (2-1, 5.40 ERA) vs. RHP Vaun Larisa (0-1, 5.23 ERA)
Game 3: RHP Gavin Blachowicz (2-1, 2.41 ERA) vs. RHP Gianni Gambardella (1-3, 9.16 ERA)
For the first time all season, a weekend starter turned in a quality start, and it was contagious. Ty Horn did what the coaches have been preaching for a while, and stopped hunting for strikeouts to get deeper into games. He used his defense well, inducing by far a season high 9 groundouts. Horn had only 2 strikeouts on the day, but went for 101 pitches over 7 innings, and gave up only 1 run. That sounds like a good start to any weekend to me.
Carson Jasa had quite the Saturday afternoon. He faced 24 batters and only 8 were able to get the ball in play. He gave up 3 hits and had 3 groundouts and 2 fly outs. 9 strikeouts were something to behold, but the 6 walks were a disaster waiting to happen. In one inning he loaded the bases on walks with a wild pitch thrown in there, then struck out the final 3 batters. Somehow in all that, he gave up no earned runs, so not a bad day at the office for someone still learning his craft.
Championship Sunday saw quite the bounce back performance by Gavin Blachowicz. After a rough day in Auburn, Alabama last week, he exploded for a career high 11 strikeouts and gave up only 1 walk. He pitched a complete game in the 7 inning run rule matchup against Michigan State. He filled up the zone more than ever before, throwing 66 out of a career high 95 pitches for strikes. He keeps going like that and there will be a lot of happy faces on Championship Sundays.
The Bears lost their two workhorse starters from a year ago. One, the conference pitcher of the year ended up being a 4th round draft pick and the other transferred to Penn State. This has led to huge problems on the mound for the Bears. Jason Krieger didn’t pitch in 2025 due to injury. But was a member of the All-Freshman team in 2024 as a starting pitcher leading Maine in ERA (5.26) and strikeouts (54) in 13 starts and 65 innings. He got rocked by High Point, but otherwise pitches about 5 innings and giving up 3-5 runs.
Senior Vaun Larisa has had the best outings of any Maine pitcher in his last 2 outings out of the bullpen, so the coaches are giving him a shot at starting again. He had been taken out of the rotation after giving up 6 runs in 5.1 innings to High Point. Sunday starter Gianni Gambardella was an all conference pitcher each of his first 3 season at Maine. This season started ok as he held Duke and High Point to 6 runs over 10+ innings. Lately however has been rough. 13 combined runs in 8.1 innings against Dayton and Winthrop. If anyone can right the ship and have a surprise game in Lincoln, its probably him.
Scouting Report
Despite having to replace upwards of 7 starters in the lineup, offense has not been a big issue for the Black Bears. In fact, their reliance on newcomers has been rewarded with conference freshman of the week honors in each of the first 4 weeks.
Freshman Troy Carpenter was a huge get for the Bears. The man D1Baseball picked as America East Freshman of the Year followed his high school coach from IMG Academy up to Maine where his is now pitching coach. Carpenter started hot, piling up hits and RBIs against Duke and High Point on his way to back to back America East Rookie of the Week honors. He’s come back to earth a bit, batting .259 now with 2 doubles, 5 home runs and a team leading 15 RBIs.
Two other freshman are making some waves in the past week. The Vermont Player of the Year in 2025, 6’6” Rex Hauser has finally broken out in the batter box, he has 6 hits in his last 4 games after going hitless in his first 5 games. Oh by the way, 3 of those 6 hits were home runs. Look out for him in Lincoln if he gets ahold of one. Joining him on a hot streak is first baseman Hunter St. Denis. In 3 games at Dayton, he had 4 hits, including a double and 2 home runs to go with 5 RBIs. Add 2 walks and 2 hit by pitches and he was a menace in the batters box. That was good enough for his turn as Rookie of the Week.
Even with the youth movement, the main threat for Maine is former Georgia Southern and Missouri grad transfer outfielder Juju Stevens. He leads the team in nearly every offensive category except RBIs, not surprising as he is the leadoff batter. He is batting .358 with 5 doubles and 6 home runs, but only 8 RBIs to show for all those extra base hits. He does not strike out often, matching his home runs total with only 6 so far.
Closer Jack Donlin has been one of the lone bright spots in the really struggling bullpen. He won conference pitcher of the week honors in week 1, striking out 4 of the 9 batters he faced in 2 appearances at Duke and picking up a save. They don’t always save him for the end of the game though. Expect to see him twice this weekend, in especially crucial points.
Pierce Friedman is another pitcher that they like to turn to once a series to try and calm things down. He can be rather hit or miss, and its usually apparent right away if hes going to be wild or on-point. He fills up the stat sheet. In 11 innings pitched, he has 11 strikeouts, 10 walks, 10 hits and 11 earned runs.
The Maine defense is average, sporting a .973 fielding percentage on the year, good for 116 in the country.
Series History
The two teams have never met on the diamond.
On Deck
- Dylan Carey led the nation in hits prior to the NDSU game, and now sits 2nd with 31 on the season.
- Mac Moyer is 33rd in the country in batting avg at .444 and 31st in OBP at .565. He currently had a15 game on-base streak.
- Nebraskas best start at home is 8-0 in 2019. They are currently 6-0 heading into the weekend.
- Husker pitchers have combined for 14 strikeouts in 4 games out of 16 to start 2026. They only did that 6 times in 2024 and 2025 combined.
