”Rutgers, they just keep swinging and they just keep scoring and so they fight. And one of the things I told anybody about them is they’re gonna use every last one of their shots. – Nebraska Coach Rhonda Revelle.
This could have been the quote after today’s game, an 11-5 Husker victory which didn’t begin to feel secure until 1) the Husker bats came alive for 3 runs in the bottom of the 5th to extend an 8-5 lead which was fueled by a 7-run 1st inning explosion, but which had gotten a little quiet as Rutgers
kept inching back into the game, and 2) Jordy Frahm came in and put an emphatic stop to the Scarlet Knights uprising with 3 scoreless innings allowing zero hits.
In fact, she threw three perfect frames with 6 strikeouts to go with her 3-for-4, 2 triple performance at the plate. Take a wild guess who today’s Corn Nation MVP is.
And in another matter of no minor importance, Coach Revelle, with the weekend’s final victory, won her 1200th game as a coach.
After earning the series win yesterday, the Huskers came into today looking to claim the series sweep as well. They have swept all their B1G series but one so far this season and that one was against then #7 UCLA just last weekend. Winning two of three was fine, though, as it still bumped them in the polls.
On Saturday, the Huskers played a doubleheader because of some rain which had moved through the area and cold, windy temps on Friday night. The first game ended how everyone expected it to, with a run-rule 8-0 win in 5 innings. In the second game, however, Rutgers had some fight in them and the Huskers only managed to win by two runs by a score of 5-3.
However, they took zero time to get going today against Hannah Camenzind in the circle. Their second batter, Riley Hwang, smacked a home run to put Rutgers up 1-0 as the Husker faithful were still settling in the seats.
Then, with 1 on and 2 out, it appeared the Huskers were out of further danger, but it wouldn’t end that easy for them. The Huskers proceeded to commit uncharacteristic back to back errors by Lauren Camenzind and Sammie Bland to load the bases. Hannah then walked Eva Garofalo to score Burtis, unearned allowing Rutgers to take a 2-0 lead into the bottom of the 1st.
And then it was Nebraska’s turn.
To save time, let’s just put it this way. When the dust cleared, the Huskers had sent 12 batters to the plate and put nine of them on base – 5 hits, 3 walks, and Hannah Cam being rudely donked in the head for a HBP. 7 runs crossed the plate, the last and most emphatic being the 3 which scored when Lauren Camenzind put her second blast of the season off of the Huskerboard behind the left-center field wall.
The Huskers did finish with 11 runs, but those 7 ended up being the knockout blow.
However, it took Frahm coming on in the 5th to finally put Rutgers on the canvas. They had kept swinging away, scoring a run each in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th innings, and I couldn’t stop thinking bout Coach Revelle’s prophetic words the evening before.
The Husker bats pounded out 14 hits in the final game of another Big 10 series sweep, their third of the season running the conference record to 11-1, good enough to remain in 2nd place chasing 12-0 Washington. Frahm finished with 11 scoreless innings on the weekend as well as again having one of the biggest bats at the plate.
And the defense picked up after the early miscues, their biggest highlight reel play coming in the top of the 7th by Natalia Hill who is almost, but not quite, making them routine:
Although Hannah Coor did have this little gem:
The Huskers begin a two-week road trip traveling north to Madison for a set against Wisconsin followed by Minnesota the following weekend.
Asked about the Rutgers scrappiness again postgame, here’s what Revelle said:
“Yeah, I’ve watched a lot of film of them doing just that, so we were completely expecting that – we even re-emphasized that in our film session this morning, that our offense needed to keep barrels coming through the zone.”
14 hits. 11 runs. Mission accomplished.
