While the game played out a bit different from the one yesterday, the Nebraska baseball team was playing with house money and once again came up big in the seventh inning. It was amazing that they scored seven runs in the inning yesterday, but to put up eight today against a conference rival is beyond incredible.
It was also in that magical seventh that Dylan Carey broke the team record for doubles and earned a well-deserved – and long – standing ovation from an ignited Cornhusker crowd. Delirium
would not be an overstatement to capture the feeling at that point in Haymarket Park.
Indiana Head Coach Jeff Mercer had his young team locked in today. They were a team on a mission determined to right the wrongs from the previous two games and leave Lincoln with one in the win column.
They were the team that got off to the hot start today, greeting former Hoosier Cooper Katskee by putting up a couple of runs in the first inning. New leadoff man Cole Decker drew a walk and scored just a couple of pitches later on a Hogan Denny double.
Indiana’s best hitter, Jake Haney got his first hit of the series by rapping a single, and then Caleb Koskie hit another single to score Denny. Before he recorded an out, Katskee was down 2-0. He was able to pull himself up and get out of the inning.
Katskee not only re-grouped in the first as he went on to shut out the Hoosiers and only gave up two more hits over the next five innings until giving up a solo home run to Landen Fry in the sixth. He would get the win as the offense had another big game.
Down 2-0, it took a few innings for the Nebraska offense to get on track, though Indiana tried to help them out with hit batters and fielding errors. Joshua Overbeek hit a two-out single in the bottom of the second and advanced to second base on a balk. He scored on a Rhett Stokes double for Nebraska’s first run of the game. Stokes has been on fire at the plate and by the end of the game had a .412 batting average.
Overbeek came up big again in the fourth inning, hitting a moonshot that appeared to some people, including Overbeek, to be a home run. However, the centerfielder lost it and it actually landed at the base of the wall. Once third base coach Lance Harvell realized it was still in the park, he yelled, jumped up and down, and waved his arms to get Overbeek out of his home run trot. He ended up on third with a leadoff triple.
Stokes then ripped another double that score Overbeek to tie the game at 2-2. After getting Moyer to ground out, Hoosier starter Brayton Thomas was pulled in favor of the team’s best pitcher, Gavin Seebold. In nine appearances this season he came in with a 0.83 ERA and had only given up a couple of runs, the last against Oregon a couple of weeks ago. He struck out the first two Cornhuskers he faced – Jeter Worthley and Case Sanderson – to end the fourth inning, but oh how the tables would turn.
The first chink in Seebold’s armor came in the bottom of the fifth when Jett Buck launched a two-out home run over the leftfield wall to give Nebraska their first lead of the game 3-2.
The Hoosiers got their game tying home run by Fry in the top of the next inning, and Nebraska went back up by a run when Mac Moyer got his first hit of the game, a two-out single and scored on a Jeter Worthley double. After six innings, it was 4-3 Nebraska and in came Tucker Timmerman to face Indiana in the top of the seventh.
Timmerman sat the boys from Bloomington down in order, and then came the Big Red in the bottom of the seventh inning. Carey led off with the record setting double, the 57th of his career. Jett Buck drove him home with a one-out single to center to make it 5-3.
After Drew Grego flew out to center, Overbeek got it started again with a single, followed by a third double in the game for Stokes, that scored Buck. With score now 6-3, Seebold was pulled for Conner Linn.
The new guy was greeted with a Moyer single followed by a Worthley single. He hit Sanderson, and then with bases loaded and two outs, Dylan Carey hit a grand slam to give Nebraska a nine-run lead, 12-3.
In the euphoria of the moment, Coach Bolt put Will Jesske in after a long absence due to an injury to take a swing at ending it on the run-rule. Jesske made hard contact, 110-mph off the bat, but right at the third baseman for the last out of the inning.
Indiana scratched out a run in the eighth and their pitching staff kept Nebraska off the board in the bottom of the inning. Grant Cleavinger came in to finish it up, punctuated by a game-ending 4-6-3 double play. Ball game! Nebraska 12, Indiana 4.
Big innings were the theme this weekend. Nebraska had at least one in all three games, and while Indiana tried to fight back, they simply could not match the production of the Cornhusker bats.
Dylan Carey had a monster game today going four for four with a double, a home run and four RBI. Joshua Overbeek and Rhett Stokes both had three hits. Overbeek had a triple and Stokes had two doubles and three RBI. Getting two hits were Mac Moyer, Jeter Worthley, and Jett Buck.
Starting pitching was solid this weekend and one has to be optimistic when the weather warms up. The bullpen is sorting itself out in terms of who are the fellas that the coaches have confidence in. Others must take advantage of the opportunities they are given as there are still a lot of games left and depth is needed.
Nebraska stays undefeated in conference series and still has a perfect record at home. They head up the road to Omaha on Tuesday to take on Creighton for the first game of the season against the Bluejays. Throw out the records when these teams meet. They’ll face off at 6:00 at the Chuck.
Notes:
- Last year about this time of the season Nebraska struggled to have two or three batters hitting .300. Right now, they have three guys hitting over .400! Mac Moyer and Rhett Stokes are hitting .412. Dylan Carey is at .417.
- In what has to be one of his more memorable games as a Cornhusker, Dylan Carey had a record-setting double and a grand slam in the same inning!
- It has to be mentioned that Indiana looked outstanding in their all-red uniforms. That’s a Sunday uniform!
