NU @ KST Series

[Eric the Red]

No. 3 Huskers Head to Kansas State this Weekend

 

Day Date Rank Opponent Radio Live Video Time

Fri. March 31 -/-/- Kansas State (19-3, 1-2) Pinnacle Sports Network HuskersNside 6:30 p.m.

Sat. April 1 -/-/- Kansas State Pinnacle Sports Network HuskersNside 2 p.m.

Sun. April 2 -/-/- Kansas State Pinnacle Sports Network HuskersNside 1 p.m.

Polls are in the following order: Collegiate Baseball/Baseball America/Sports Weekly

 

Pitching Probables

Fri.

Joba Chamberlain, Jr., RHP (3-1, 1.32 ERA, 27.1 IP)

Brad Hutt, So., RHP (4-0, 3.06 ERA, 32.1 IP)

 

Sat.

Tony Watson, So., LHP (4-0, 1.69 ERA, 37.1 IP)

Adam Cowart, Sr., RHP (4-1, 2.09 ERA, 38.2 IP)

 

Sun.

Johnny Dorn, So., RHP (3-2, 4.20 ERA, 30 IP)

Chase Bayuk, So., LHP (5-1, 2.12 ERA, 29.2 IP)

 

Media Information

Live Stats: Huskers.com

Radio: Pinnacle Sports Network

Live Video: HuskersNside (subscription package)

Internet Radio: Huskers.com

 

No. 3 Huskers Head to Kansas State this Weekend

For the first time since March 5, the Nebraska baseball team leaves the cozy confines of Hawks Field, as the third-ranked Huskers travel to Manhattan, Kan., for a series with Kansas State this weekend. The three-game set commences on Friday evening with a first pitch set for 6:30 p.m. before afternoon contests on Saturday (2 p.m.) and Sunday (1 p.m.). The weekend’s trip marks the beginning of an eight-game road trip for the Big Red, as NU will not play at home again until April 13.

 

All three games will be available on the Pinnacle Sports Network, a 20-station network that encompasses the Midwest including KFAB 1110 AM in Omaha, 1400 AM in Lincoln and KRVN 880 AM in Lexington, along with Huskers.com. In addition, both weekend games will be available on SIRIUS Satellite Radio, the first of 15 Husker baseball games available on that medium this spring. Both of the weekend’s games against Kansas State can be found on Channel 143. For more information on Sirius Radio, visit Sirius.com.

 

Fans who want to watch all of the weekend action will be able to view video of all three games live on HuskersNside, as nearly 50 regular-season games will be shown on the subscription site this season.

 

The Huskers head to Manhattan with an 18-4 record after splitting a two-game series with Northern Colorado. After losing 5-2 in the series opener, freshman Tim Radmacher pitched five shutout innings, while Jeff Christy, Ryan Wehrle and Luke Gorsett all homered in a 9-1 Husker victory on Wednesday. Radmacher fanned six over five innings for his first career win.

 

The Huskers will run into one of the hottest teams in college baseball this weekend, as Kansas State is off to its best start in school annals with a 19-3 record. The Wildcats are a perfect 15-0 at Tointon Family Stadium following a mid-week sweep of Chicago State and has won 20 straight at home dating back to last spring.

 

In the Big 12 race, the Huskers are tied with Oklahoma with 2-1 marks, trailing only Missouri (5-1) and Texas (4-1) in the league race. Kansas State is 1-2 after dropping 2-of-3 at Missouri last weekend, when the Tigers snapped KSU’s 16-game win streak.

The weekend series will feature the leading offense in the Big 12 against the conference’s best pitching staff. KSU is hitting a league-best .337 heading into the weekend series and is 38-of-40 in stolen base attempts. The Huskers top fhe Big 12 with a 2.42 ERA and have allowed a league-low 11 stolen bases in 22 contests.

 

The Huskers have enjoyed recent success in the series, winning the last 10 meetings dating back to the 2002 Big 12 Tournament in Arlington. Last season, NU swept the Wildcats in Lincoln on the last weekend of the regular season, clinching a share of the Big 12 title in the process. Nebraska’s last loss in the series came in Manhattan during the 2002 campaign.

 

 

Leading Off

•-Nebraska has gotten off to fast starts, scoring at least one run in the first inning of each of its last nine games, dating back to March 14. NU is outscoring foes 28-6 in first innings this year.

•-Nebraska’s current 10-game winning streak against KSU is its longest since a 19-game winning streak against the Wildcats that stretched from 1982 to 1986.

•-One of NU’s keys to its win streak was a prolific effort on the base paths. After stealing just two bases in its first six games, NU has swiped 40 in the last 14 contests, including 26-of-28 in one seven-game stretch before going 0-for-2 in Sunday’s loss to Kansas.

•-Nebraska is currently ranked 13th in the latest RPI (warrennolan.com and Boydsworld.com) and begins a stretch of playing 22 straight games against teams in the top-100 in the RPI.

•-Current Kansas State head coach Brad Hill was an assistant to NU assistant coach Dave Bingham at Kansas from 1991 to 1994, including Kansas’ 1993 CWS appearance.

•-Shortstop Ryan Wehrle is hitting .550 (11-for-20) over NU’s last five games, capped by his first career four-hit day on Wednesday against Northern Colorado.

•-Senior first baseman Brandon Buckman has continued his early-season tear, as the senior is hitting .467 (21-for-45) with five homers and 15 RBIs in his last 12 games, raising his average 150 points since March 6. Buckman has seven multi-hit games and four multi-RBI contests in that stretch and was named the Big 12 Player of the Week on Tuesday.

• Jeff Christy has been effective offensively and behind the plate in recent weeks. He is hitting .389 in his last five games, raising his average to a season-best .232. Defensively, no opponent has tried to steal a base in the last seven games, while Christy has thrown out 44 percent of runners this season.

•-NU had won its last 33 straight non-conference home games dating back to the 2004 campaign before Tuesday’s loss to Northern Colorado.

•-Redshirt freshman Nick Sullivan has been seeing extensive time in recent weeks, as he is hitting .538 with three multi-hit games in his last five contests. Sullivan is hitting .435 on the season and drove in two runs on Wednesday against Northern Colorado.

•-Since allowing three runs in the ninth inning of his 2006 debut against NC State on Feb. 17, senior closer Brett Jensen has been nothing short of spectacular, going 3-0 with four saves and a 0.00 ERA in his last 10 appearances. He has allowed just five singles over his last 19 innings and opponents are hitting .105 in that stretch.

•-Ryan Wehrle hit .417 (5-for-12) and scored five times in the series win over the Jayhawks.

•-Freshman Erik Bird has continued to impress, as he has not allowed a run in his seven appearances. He made two relief appearances against KU, holding the Jayhawks to one hit.

•-Nebraska is hitting .349 with runners in scoring position, including .393 (11-for-28) in bases loaded situations, highlighted by Luke Gorsett’s homer against Kansas on Saturday. In 2005, the Huskers hit just .207 with the bases loaded.

•-NU Head Coach Mike Anderson played three seasons at Northern Colorado (1984-86) before graduating from the school in 1990. He ranks ninth on UNC’s career hitting list with a .386 average and is second on the Bears’ all-time chart with 70 stolen bases.

•-Three members of the 2006 Huskers hail from the state of Kansas, relievers Jared Cranston (Colby) and Matt Foust (Overland Park) and two-way performer Ryan Bohanan (Goddard), who is redshirting because of off-season shoulder surgery.

•-Nebraska has held 17 of its first 22 opponents to four runs or less this season and its 2.8 runs allowed per game ties South Carolina for the national lead in that category.

•-NU is off to one of its best starts in school history, as its 18-4 record is the third-best start after 22 games in school history. Only the 1983 and 2005 squads have gotten off to quicker starts to open the year.

•-Nebraska has had four home win streaks of at least 10 games since moving into Hawks Field at the start of the 2002 season.

•-Nebraska has already sold out all the reserved and club seats at Hawks Field for the 2006 season. NU ranked sixth nationally in average attendance, averaging a school-record 4,984 fans per game in 2005. NU’s number is based on actual game attendance, not tickets sold.

•-Nebraska’s bullpen has made great strides from the season’s opening weekend. After giving up eight runs in 14.1 innings, NU has posted a 1.46 ERA over its last 18 games.

•-Nebraska is one of only three teams in the country that returns two pitchers who won at least 10 games in 2005 (Oregon State and Miami of Ohio are the others).

•-Nebraska is one of only seven teams in all of Division I baseball to post team ERAs below 4.00 over the last four years, joining Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, Oral Roberts, Rice, Texas and Wichita State. The Huskers were second nationally with a 2.69 team ERA in 2005.

•-Nebraska is one of only six programs nationally to reach the College World Series in three of the past five seasons, joining Cal State Fullerton, Miami, South Carolina, Stanford and Texas. The Big 12 is the only league with more than one team in that group.

•- Nebraska has scored at least one run in each of its last 153 games dating back to the start of the 2005 campaign. The streak is the longest in the Big 12, while NU has scored in 484 of the last 485 games dating back to the 1998 season.

•-NU already has six come-from-behind wins this season, including four straight during NU’s 13-game win streak. Earlier this season, NU rallied from a two-run ninth-inning deficit to defeat Richmond, 5-4, in 12 innings. Despite recording 20 come-from-behind wins in 2005, the Huskers were 0-9 in games when they trailed entering the ninth frame a season ago.

 

Last Time Out

Wednesday (Nebraska 9, No. Colorado 1): Tim Radmacher pitched five shutout innings, while Jeff Christy, Ryan Wehrle and Luke Gorsett all homered, as No. 3 Nebraska bounced back to defeat Northern Colorado, 9-1. Radmacher earned his first collegiate win, scattering two hits over five innings and striking out six as five Husker hurlers held UNC to five hits. Werhle led Nebraska’s 12-hit attack with a career-high four hits and driving in three runs, including his third homer of the year, while Nick Sullivan and Jeff Christy had two hits apiece and combined to drive in four runs.

 

Scouting Kansas State

Under third-year coach Brad Hill, Kansas State hosts the Huskers with a 19-3 record, the best mark in school history after 22 games. KSU enjoyed a 16-game winning streak, including wins over nationally ranked Wichita State and Missouri, before dropping the final two games to the Tigers.

 

Offensively, the Wildcats feature two of the Big 12’s top hitters in outfielder Joe Roundy and Barrett Rice. Roundy leads the Big 12 with a .482 average and has three homers and 31 RBIs, while Rice is second in the league with a .436 mark with three homers and 23 runs driven in. In all, five everyday starters are hitting over .300 and KSU is averaging nearly eight runs per game.

KSU’s weekend rotation fo right-handers Adam Cowart and Brad Hutt and lefty Chase Bayuk have combined for a 13-2 record and all have ERAs under 3.10 as the Wildcats are third in the league with aq 2.69 ERA. In the bullpen, Bryan Peterson has been the closer, ranking among the Big 12 leaders with four saves.

 

Nebraska leads the all-time series, 152-96, including a current 10-game win streak that dates back to 2002. Two years ago, Husker pitching combined on back-to-back shutouts as part of a Big 12-record 43.1 inning scoreless streak. KSU’s last win and series win came in 2002, as the Wildcats took 2-of-3 against a Husker team that reached the CWS that season.

[KansasHusker]

well thats nice...ksu is smoking us tonight...when I go to the game tomorrow I better see a different outcome...

[KansasHusker]

and against joba?! something is wrong with this team lately...

[Eric the Red]

Husker Baseball

 

Huskers Snap ‘Cats Home Win Streak

 

By: Wire Reports

 

Date: Apr 1, 2006

 

Behind a career-long effort from Tony Watson, No. 3 Nebraska evened the weekend series with Kansas State by handing the Wildcats a 5-4 setback in front of an overflow crowd of 3,139 at Tointon Family Stadium Saturday afternoon.

 

Tony Watson, who improved to 5-0 on the season, allowed three runs and scattered eight hits over a career-high 7.1 innings of work, as NU (19-5, 3-2 Big 12) built a pair of three-run leads and withstood a late-inning comeback by Kansas State. It was Watson’s 10th straight decision dating back to last March, and snapped KSU’s 21-game home winning streak, the second-longest active streak in the nation, in the process.

“It all starts on the mound,” Nebraska Head Coach Mike Anderson said after Watson and closer Brett Jensen combined for six strikeouts without a walk. “Tony was great out there today and really set the tone for us early by throwing strikes. He settled down after the first and really pitched well.”

 

Nebraska pounded out 10 hits against Wildcat starter and loser Adam Cowart, who dropped to 4-2 on the season. Cowart, who went eight innings, surrendered all five runs, as NU plated runs in five of the first six innings off of the KSU starter.

 

“That was out best offensive team effort of the year,” Anderson said. “From executing squeezes to putting the ball in play to moving runners, everyone in our lineup responded.”

 

Junior Steve Edlefsen drove in a career-high two runs while Nick Jaros, Ryan Wehrle and Brandon Buckman had two hits apiece in the victory.

 

KSU closed to within 5-4 in the eighth on a two-run homer off the bat of Cris Tapia off NU closer Brett Jensen, but the Husker closer retired the final four hitters he faced to secure his fifth save of the season in six chance. The run allowed was the first by Jensen since Feb. 17, a span of 10 appearances heading into Saturday.

 

Nebraska struck in the top of the first, using three hits and a pair of KSU errors to plate the first run of the day on Buckman’s RBI single. With one out, consecutive singles by Jaros and Wehrle and a throwing error put runners on the corners before Buckman slapped a run-scoring single into right.

 

Kansas State got the run back in the bottom of the first, as Brandon Farr singled, moved to second on a balk and scored on Jared Goedert’s double off the wall in center.

 

In the second, Bryce Nimmo’s RBI double plated Jeff Christy for the eventual go-ahead run. Christy was hit by a pitch to open the inning before Jake Opitz sacrificed him into scoring position. Nimmo then lofted a single into shallow left center, but alertly took second as the base was left uncovered.

 

NU pushed the lead to 3-1 in the third on Luke Gorsett’s sacrifice fly. Jaros opened the inning with his second hit of day and stole second to move into scoring position. Buckman then doubled to left to put runners on second and third with one out before Gorsett lofted a 1-1 pitch to deep right, allowing Jaros from third. The Huskers pushed across another run in the fourth, as Opitz tripled into the corner in right and scored moments later on Edlefsen’s suicide squeeze to give NU a 4-1 cushion.

 

KSU cut into the Husker lead in the bottom of the fifth, getting a one-out RBI single by Eli Rumler to plate Barrett Rice. The Wildcats continued to threaten, as Brett Scott’s single put runners on first and second before the Huskers got a break to get out of the frame. Tyler Link hit a ball that glanced off his leg, but rolled to third, where Edlefsen alertly stepped on third and threw across the diamond to complete an inning-ending double play.

 

The Huskers manufactured another run in the sixth, as Jeff Christy opened the frame with a double to center, moved to third on an Opitz ground out and scored as Edlefsen hit a bouncer over the mound for a groundout to second to his second RBI of the afternoon.

 

In the eighth, Watson struck out the leadoff hitter before Farr reached on a one-out single. Jensen stuck out Goedert for the second out, but Tapia turned on a 1-0 pitch and homered to right center, pulling KSU within a run. That would be KSU’s final hit as Jensen slammed the door in the ninth.

 

The Huskers and Wildcats will conclude the three-game set Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. Johnny Dorn (3-2, 4.20 ERA) will take on left

[KansasHusker]

I went to the game yesterday...but luckily I left before jensen gave up a 2 run homer...the last thing I wanted to do was hear ksu fans cheer anymore...but I thought we looked alright all around yesterday. It was funny to watch ksu's coach get thrown out...

[KansasHusker]

and another ksu assistant coach is thrown out today...

 

huskers by 1 now in the 3rd with bases loaded, 1 out, and gorsett is up to bat...gorsett hit a homer today in the 2nd.

[KansasHusker]

run comes in as bases were loaded and gorsett is walked...bases still loaded, 1 out...2-0 huskers...

[KansasHusker]

andrew brown blasts a double when he ends up at 3rd! clears the bases and 3 runs score! 5-0 big red...

[KansasHusker]

right now it is 12-2...we have been rolling and gorsett hit his 2nd homer of the day...

[KansasHusker]

game over, huskers win 12-2 and take series 2-1...after a bad first game we got back on track...nice job guys!

[hskrfannnwk]

Glad we won over all in the series! Couldn't stand to hear KSU fans going on about that one too!!!

[BIGREDFAN_in_OMAHA]

Gorsett is a stud! He surely has to be on pace to shatter Nebraska's single season homerun record.

[Jarred04]

Heard from a friend who knows Joba, and he said Joba's tricep was still hurting him during his outing on friday. I don't know whether this was the culprit or whether it was a bad day, but I really hope he gets over this soon. We need him to stay strong.