Nebraska Finds Magic Again Beating the College of Charleston 5-4

Call them the Comeback Kids! After a wild ninth inning in Game 1 of the series against the College of Charleston to tie the game that they then won in the tenth, who could imagine that the boys from Nebraska were headed for more drama on Saturday night.

Down 4-1 going into the 8^th inning, Nebraska was not ready to fold their tent. They had out hit the Cougars six to four at that point, but had not been able to capitalize. That changed as they were able to score two runs to draw within a run. With one out, Josh Caron smacked a single. Tyler Stone then struck out, but Cole Evans showed patience at the plate working a walk off relief pitcher Aidan Hunter.

Struggling Dylan Carey then found the pitch he was looking for and shot a rocket the opposite way to score Caron and move Evans to second. Ben Columbus followed with another single to plate Evans. After Garrett Anglim sent one deep that was unfortunately caught, Nebraska had clawed back and were only down 4-3.

After freshman Ty Horn shut down the Cougars in the bottom of the eighth, ninth inning magic struck again. Charleston brought in soft tossing Alex Lyon, who totally baffled the Big Red on Thursday, to close the door.

In to pinch-hit, Will Jesske grounded out to second base. After that, Cayden Brumbaugh beat out an infield single and Riley Silva ripped a single against the sidewinder, moving Brumbaugh to third. That brought the Cougar coach out to the mound to talk a little strategy and calm his pitcher down.

With two on base, up came the team’s most dependable hitter thus far in the season, Josh Caron. After Silva swiped second, Caron laced a liner to centerfield. Dariyan Pendergrass dove as he charged hard but was unable to make the catch. Holding to see if it was caught, Brumbaugh scored and Silva advanced to second. The game was now tied 4-4 and Nebraska’s fastest baserunner was 90-feet away from putting the Cornhuskers on top.

Up came Tyler Stone to face a new Cougar pitcher, Davis Aiken. Stone drove a 3-1 fastball that was caught up against the wall in leftfield to drive in the go ahead run for the Cornhuskers. Up 5-4, Nebraska brought in Casey Daiss to face the middle of the order and get the save in the bottom of the ninth.

It is said that Daiss has ice water in his veins, which would be critical at this point. With a lot of movement on his pitches, Avery Neaves popped up to right and then Daiss struck out shortstop Luke Wood. The Cougars got a little spark as pinch hitter Tyler Sorrentino smacked a double, making him the tying run standing at second base. Daiss was up to the challenge as he popped up Dylan Johnson to end the game. Nebraska secures the series win, 5-4.

Brett Sears had another quality start, only giving up two hits – both of them to Cole Singsank — in six full innings. However, one of those was a two-run homer in the bottom of the second that put the Cougars up 2-0. Outside of that, he has shown why the Cornhusker coaching staff has named him the Friday starter. Against a team that had drawn more walks that strikeouts up to this point in the season, Sears fanned seven and walked one, leaving the game with a 1.56 ERA.

Nebraska started the game off with a couple of hits in the top of the first, but we unable to plate a run. They also threatened in the third and fourth innings before finally putting a run on the board in the sixth inning. Riley Silva led the inning off with a double and scored three batters later when Cole Evans drove him in with a single.

Cougar starter Jake Brink did a good job of slowing down the Cornhusker offense. While he gave up seven hits to the Big Red, he only surrendered the one run. In 6.2 innings he walked three and struck out four on 103 pitches.

Charleston picked up the two runs off Sears in the second and then battered freshman Ty Horn when he entered in the seventh inning. Kevin Madden smacked his first pitch for a single. Shaken a bit, he then walked Avery Neaves on four pitches.

Coach Rob Childress took a timeout to calm the youngster down. However, he tossed a wild pitch that moved both runners into scoring position and then served up a single to Luke Wood that resulted in both runners scoring, aided by a throwing error.

Coach Bolt stuck with the freshman at that point as he recorded a strikeout, and retired the final two batters of the inning with an infield pop-up and a ground out to Ben Columbus at third base.

The win sets up Championship Sunday with the Cornhuskers having their first chance to sweep a series. There is a good chance that Nebraska will go with Will Walsh, who was actually scheduled to pitch today. Charleston will most likely go with their scheduled Sunday starter, lefthander Connor Campbell, who sports a 2-0 record and a 0.66 ERA. First pitch is scheduled for 12:00 noon CST.

Notes:

· Four players saw action at second base for Nebraska during the game. Rhett Stokes got the start. After he was pinch hit for by Case Sanderson, Dylan Hufft took the spot. Bryce Hughes followed defensively when Hufft was lifted so Clay Bradford could hit. Then in his first appearance at the position this year, Will Jesske grabbed his glove to finish off the game.

· No word on whether Cayden Brumbaugh was injured or whether it was a just a precaution to protect his surgically repaired shoulder.

· With a fastball topping out at 73-mph, Alex Lyon was not able to baffle Cornhusker hitters like he did on Thursday.

· Cougar pitcher Aidan Hunter, who came in to pitch in the seventh inning, was listed as the original Game 3 starter.

· Riley Silva had three hits in the game, pushing his batting average to .395. Cayden Brumbaugh, Josh Caron, and Ben Columbus all had two hits.