Iowa Deals Nebraska a Hard 11-6 Loss in Iowa City

After an unexpected pitcher’s duel on Friday night, game two in the series between the Cornhuskers and Hawkeyes turned into the type of game most fans expected between the two rivals. Unfortunately, the high-pressure offense Coach Rick Heller’s teams are famous for wore out Nebraska pitching and left the Cornhuskers wondering what happened to the promise of this season.

Ty Horn (0-4, 7.25 ERA) took the mound for Nebraska and faced off against another righthander, Aaron Savary, who had a sparkling 5-0 record. Horn has been somewhat of a tough-luck guy as of late, pitching well at times, but not getting much offensive support.

In the early going, the Big Red shook off last night’s hitting woes. After Iowa manufactured a run in their half of the first inning, Nebraska took the lead in the top of the second as catcher Will Jesske homered to left field, driving in Cael Frost, who had reached base on a walk.

Gable Mitchell, grandson of wrestling legend Dan Gable, tied the game up in the bottom of the third inning on a solo home run he drove over the right field wall. After three innings, it was knotted up at 2 a piece.

In the top of the fourth, Iowa native Cael Frost came through in a big way and put Nebraska back in the lead. Tyler Stone started the inning off with a single through the right side and Dylan Carey was hit by a pitch. Up came Frost, who played a couple years of JUCO ball 30 miles north of Iowa City. The lefthander smoked an Aaron Savary pitch over the left-centerfield wall at Duane Banks Field to put Nebraska up 5-3.

Ty Horn wasn’t real sharp today, but he was able for the most part to work his way out of trouble until the fifth inning. With one out, he walked Reese Moore. Coach Childress came out for a visit as it appeared that Horn may have incurred some kind of injury, but it was not clear what it may have been. He stayed in the game and served up a two-run homer to Miles Risley. 5-4 Cornhuskers.

At this point, the inconsistency of the Nebraska bullpen came to the surface once again. Two pitchers – Blake Encarnacion and Grant Cleavinger — were needed to finish the inning. Fortunately, they kept the Hawkeyes from putting any more runs on the board.

Hanging on to a 5-4 lead, Joshua Overbeek hit his first home run of the season in the top of the seventh inning to extend the Nebraska lead to 6-4. At the start of the season, no one familiar with Nebraska baseball would have thought it would have taken this long for Overbeek to knock a home run, but that’s basically been the story for a high percentage of Nebraska’s returning offense.

Ryan Harrahill did turn in a couple of decent innings on the mound, keeping the Hawkeyes off the scoreboard in the fifth and sixth innings. However, in the bottom of the seventh, he walked the first two batters and then gave up a line drive single to Kooper Schulte, last night’s home run hero. Coach Childress did not hesitate after that and brought in closer Luke Broderick. The fact that Broderick was brought into the game in the seventh inning shows how important this game was to the Cornhuskers. He ended the seventh with two big strikeouts and Nebraska was clinging to a one-run lead, 6-5.

It seemed that any momentum Nebraska had disappeared after that. Pinch-hitter Gabe Swansen and Max Buettenback started the eighth inning striking out against reliver Brant Hogue. Then, after both Tyler Stone and Dylan Carey got on base getting hit by a pitch, Stone was picked off second base to end the inning.

Sensing that the game was theirs to win, Iowa did what Iowa does in their half of the eighth. Left fielder Ben Wilmes led the inning off with a home run to tie the score at six. Broderick then walked Mitchell and combined with Drew Christo to walk Moore. Christo had entered with two balls on the hitter and walked him two pitches later.

After that, the damn broke and the Hawkeyes scored five more runs off Christo, culminating with a three-run home run by Andy Nelson. When the dust cleared, Iowa was up 11-6 and Nebraska was deflated. They didn’t mount any kind of a threat in the ninth and had lost another Big Ten series.

Those who follow Nebraska baseball closely keep thinking that at some point this team is going to turn it around and start firing on all cylinders. Perhaps it is time to just realize that this is not a very good team. Yes, there is quite a bit of talent on the team, but for whatever reason, it does not have the mental makeup to put it all together. At this point in the season this team is not a Big Ten Tournament team, so the thought of a Cinderella finish in Omaha is remote.

Jackson Brockett will toe the rubber tomorrow against Reece Beuter at 1:02, hoping to give the boys a chance to salvage a win on the weekend.

Extra Innings:

· Nebraska pitching recorded 14 strikeouts. However, they also surrendered eight walks and one hit batter. That, along with twelve Iowa hits – four of them home runs – was more than enough to win the ball game.

· Case Sanderson rebounded from a bad night with two hits today. Will Jesske, Cael Frost, and Joshua Overbeek all homered for the Big Red.

· Yellow shoes. I’ll leave it there.