Nebraska Baseball Weekend Preview: South Alabama

South Alabama Jaguars (10-3) at Nebraska Cornhuskers (7-3)

Location: Hawks Field at Haymarket Park, Lincoln, NE

Dates: March 8th-10th

Times (all CST): Friday @ 4:05pm, Saturday @ 2:05pm, Sunday @ 12:05pm

Head Coaches: Will Bolt (5th season, 104-78-1) & Mark Calvi (13th season, 377-289)

TV/Stream: B1G+

Radio: Huskers Radio Network, Huskers.com, Huskers App

We continue our tour of the former position coaches from the back to back CWS champion South Carolina by moving from their hitting coach last week at CofC to their pitching coach in Mark Calvi this week at USA.

USA comes to Lincoln to complete the home and home series agreement between the teams, after the Huskers went down to Mobile last season and swept the Jags in dominating fashion by a combined 29-10. Speaking of traveling, this will be the first time USA has left the friendly confines of Stanky Field this season.

The Jags have accumulated a 10-3 record against some, well, lesser competition. Their biggest win of the season thus far came against future Husker opponent Nicholls. They beat the 11-3 colonels 11-10 in 10 innings, doing their best Nebraska impression, scoring 5 runs in the 9th and 10th innings to secure the win.

Pitching Probables

Game 1: RHP Drew Christo (1-0, 3.07 ERA) vs. RHP Carson Swilling (1-1, 3.07 ERA)

Game 2: RHP Brett Sears (1-0, 1.56 ERA) vs. LHP Cam Hill (2-0, 1.13 ERA)

Game 3: LHP Ty Horn (1-0, 1.35 ERA) vs. RHP Cade Carlson (0-1), 6.55 ERA)

A week after recording his first quality start and setting a personal best outing with 6.0 innings pitched at GCU, Drew Christo did the same at CofC. Another new career high 6.2 innings kept the game close enough for the offense to come alive in the 9th. He hasn’t put up the strikeout numbers some may have expected with his available pitches, but the same could have been said for Jace Kaminska last year, and he still formed a pretty good 1-2 punch with Emmitt Olson.

The Brett Sears Express rolls on. The Husker ace struck out 7 and only gave up 2 runs in his 6 innings at College of Charleston last week, with those runs coming off a 2-run home run in the 2nd inning. The late starting NU offense kept him from earning a decision. Despite his red hot start to the season, he’s only 1-0.

Just like last year, the starting pitching after the first two games of the weekend has been a mixed bag. Will Walsh and Caleb Clark have ERAs in the 6.00 range. The on-going search for the 3rd starter now turns to Ty Horn. Horn has made 3 appearances on the season so far, pitching in 6.2 innings, with his longest outing being 3 innings against GCU where he gave up one unearned run. In his last outing against CofC, he allowed 2 runs, 1 earned in 2 innings following Brett Sears. He’s been getting some of the highest praise of the Freshmen pitchers, so its not a surprise that he is the first to earn a chance at locking down the Sunday spot.

USA’s ace Carson Swilling is a Junior transfer from Auburn. He was one of the top relievers for the Tigers his freshman and sophomore years, and is returning to Nebraska for the first time since pitching in the CWS and striking out a pair of Arkansas batters. So far for USA, he’s thrown about 5 innings per start, and about 90-100 pitches. He’s given up 5 runs in his past two games, after shutting out Lamar over 5 innings in his team debut.

Stop me when you’ve hear this before, but Saturday starter Cam Hill is a transfer from Auburn University. The senior played his first 3 years at Auburn, with the first two as a pitcher/DH, and his junior year as strictly a first baseman. He’s done a complete 180 and is now purely a pitcher for the Jags. After a rocky inning in his first start against Southern Indiana, he’s in the midst of a 12 inning shutout streak.

Cade Carlson, the Sunday starter for USA did everything at Tennessee State last season. Carlson led the Southern Conference in ERA last year in conference games with a 2.38 ERA. Towards the end of the season, he was the ace of the staff, tossing a 7 inning shutout in one game and then throwing 8 innings in a 2-1 loss in the SoCon tournament to eventual champion Samford.

South Alabama Scouting Report

The Jags are coming off their worst season under Calvi. After finishing no worse than 6th in the 14 team Sun Belt Conference, they finished 11th last year. They actually weren’t sitting terribly awful with a month left to go in the season, 23-21 overall and 11-10 in conference. Then a 10 game losing streak to end the season happened, highlighted by a series against Coastal Carolina in which USA gave up an average of 13 runs per game, and that just sent the season down the drain.

The top returning hitter, who was the biggest thorn in Nebraska’s side last year is CF Will Turner. He nearly hit for the cycle in the final game of the series last year, falling a home run shy. He finished the year as a 2nd team all Southern Conference, hitting .349 with 9 home runs and 52 RBIs. He’s a little slower out of the gate this season, hitting .256, but has already hit 3 home runs and has walked EIGHTEEN TIMES to push his on-base percentage to an astonishing .469.

They have a freshman off to an incredibly hot start. Right fielder Ethan Melton is leading the team with a .388 batting average, and 1.088 OPS. Not so fun fact, he chose USA over a little school called Nebraska. They also landed an impact transfer in second baseman Brennan Holt. Anytime you can get a dude on your roster that LSU landed out of high school, you take him. Spent a year at Okie State between the two programs after being injured his freshman year at LSU. He is batting .333 and leads the team with 6 doubles and adds 6 steals.

The Jags bullpen had a lot of issues last year, despite restocking with a lot of JUCO players. They do return their closer who is off to an incredibly good start. Grant Wood already has 3 saves on the season, and has struck out 12 batters in 6.2 innings and only given up 1 earned run. They added 2 impact newcomers that are leading their team in appearances in Citadel transfer Gant Starling, and JUCO transfer Logan Wash. Starling has always been a strikeout pitcher, and has 8 in 4.2 innings.

Series History

The Huskers hold a 3-0 record against the Jags, with the sweep by Nebraska in 2023 being their only previous meeting.

Nebraska Notes

• Cayden Brumbaugh experienced an injury to his throwing arm in Charleston, and is expected to not play defense for the next 6 weeks. Nebraska will have to be a little creative with its lineups over the next couple weeks. Bolt specifically mentions Will Jesske potentially playing out of his natural C/3B positions since he has been hitting well.
• Josh Overbeek could return as soon as next weekend against Nichols, after breaking a finger in Arlington, Texas.
• Riley Silva has been a huge boost to the Nebraska offense. He has a .533 on-base percentage on the young season, leading the team. And since sliding into the 2 spot, Silva is batting .417. He also leads the Huskers in runs (13) and stolen bases (9).
• The Huskers are ranked 6th in the nation with 13 sacrifice bunts, led by Silva’s 3. Quite the dichotomy from last year’s school record 97 home runs.
• Nebraska also released their TV schedule for the rest of the year.