Nebraska baseball team overcomes early deficit to clinch series against Jaguars

LINCOLN, Neb. (Nebraska Athletics) – Nebraska scored 10 of its runs with two outs and overcame a five-run deficit for the first time since 2021, as the Huskers clinched the series over South Alabama with a 12-7 win on Sunday afternoon at Hawks Field at Haymarket Park.

The Huskers (9-4) scored 12 runs on 15 hits and five errors, while the Jaguars (11-5) had seven runs on eight hits and an error.

Rhett Stokes continued his hot stretch at the plate this weekend, going 3-for-4 with two doubles and two RBI. Tyler Stone was 3-for-5 with a double and team-high three runs scored.

Dylan Carey had a 2-for-3 afternoon at the plate with a home run, three RBI and a pair of walks. Case Sanderson, Garrett Anglim and Dylan Hufft recorded two hits apiece, while Cole Evans had a double.

Ty Horn made his first career start on Sunday, pitching three innings. The freshman allowed six runs, two earned, on three hits and struck out four Jaguars. Mason McConnaughey pitched the next three innings and picked up his first win to improve to 1-2 on the season. McConnaughey struck out a career-high seven hitters and allowed just two hits and a walk.

Kyle Perry recorded two outs, setting up Tucker Timmerman to finish the game for the NU pitching staff. Timmerman struck out four and issued one walk and two hits in 2.1 scoreless innings of relief.

A leadoff walk, followed by back-to-back errors on routine ground balls plated the game’s first run for the Jaguars in the opening frame. South Alabama’s lead enlarged to four after Lucas Ismaili’s three-run homer to left.

The Big Red had the bases loaded in the second with no outs after a leadoff double by Stone and consecutive walks to Clay Bradford and Garrett Anglim. An RBI groundout from Ben Columbus scored Stone but that would be all the Huskers could get, as a 5-4-3 double play put an end to Nebraska’s threat and kept it a 4-1 game.

A hit and an error in the top of the third added two more to the lead for the Jaguars. A two-out single, followed by an NU fielding error made it a 5-1 game, before a wild pitch later in the inning grew the lead to 6-1.

The Huskers got one of the two runs back in the bottom of the third after Silva reached on a leadoff walk and Sanderson poked an RBI single through the right side.

McConnaughey blanked the Jaguars in the fourth and fifth innings, while the NU offense put up four runs on four hits in the bottom of the fifth to lock the game at six. Josh Caron reached on a fielder’s choice, while Stone singled to center to put runners on first and second with one out. Anglim continued the rally in the fifth with an RBI double to left-center, plating Caron.

Carey drew a full-count walk with the bases loaded to score Stone, while Stokes smacked a two-RBI single back up the middle to lock the game at six through five innings.

South Alabama began the sixth with a leadoff single, but McConnaughey retired the next three Jaguars to maintain the tie at six heading into the bottom of the sixth.

The NU offense picked up where it left off from in the fifth, scoring six two-out runs in the sixth to jump ahead 12-6. A walk to Caron and Stone’s second single of the day set up Evans’ two-RBI double to the fence in right-center.  Evans came around to score on Anglim’s RBI single in the next at-bat to give the Big Red a 9-6 lead.

Hufft sent a 3-2 pitch to center for an RBI single to plate Anglim and grow the lead to four, before Carey launched a 353-foot two-run homer into the left-field berm for his first homer of the season.

A leadoff solo homer in the top of the seventh brought the Jaguars within five, while a pair of NU errors placed runners on first and second for the visitors with two outs. Timmerman replaced Perry on the mound and induced a first-pitch fielder’s choice to elude the damage.

Timmerman worked around a single in the eighth and faced traffic on the basepath in the ninth, but the freshman clinched the series win with a three-pitch strikeout of Robbie Petracci to finish off the Jaguars for Nebraska’s 12-7 win.

Nebraska travels to Wichita, Kan., for a pair of midweek games at Wichita State on Tuesday-Wednesday, March 12-13.

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