Nebraska baseball announces five captains for the 2023 season
Nebraska baseball declared its captains for the upcoming season on Friday afternoon. The Huskers will be represented by catcher Griffin Everitt, pitchers Kyle Perry and Shay Schanaman along with infielders Efry Cervantes and Brice Matthews.
Nebraska made its selections by a team vote. The list features three captains getting a second crack at the role. Schanaman, Perry and Everitt served throughout the 2022 season in which the Huskers went 23-30 and finished 10th in the Big Ten. Cam Chick, NU’s fourth captain last season, transferred to Missouri in the summer.
The team elected Cervantes and Matthews for the first time. All five are upperclassmen charged with leading the program to improvement in 2023.
Round Two: Perry, Schanaman and Everitt
Nebraska’s captains are an experienced crew. Between the five athletes, there are 23 years of college baseball experience. Those offered a second chance at captaincy hold 15 of those 23 seasons.
Perry returns from a season-ending injury that cost him the better part of last year. In five appearances and four starts, the southpaw struggled with a 6.75 ERA. His record was 0-2 and he tallied 17 strikeouts in nearly 15 innings.
Perry has had only a single full season at Nebraska. He returned from injury in 2021 during May and threw for 4.1 innings at the Fayetteville Regional. Perry’s 2020 campaign was cut short due to COVID-19. He went 2-1 with a 5.47 ERA during his freshman season and added 29 strikeouts in 26.1 innings of work.
The Millard South product will come out of the bullpen for his final year. Much like the Huskers, he is seeking to bounce back.
Schanaman is another former Nebraska starting pitcher to return to his reliever roots.
In 2019, the Grand Island native finished third on the team in relief appearances compiling a 3.18 ERA in 22.2 innings and 19 opportunities. Schanaman led the team in relief outings during the shortened 2020 season before making his transition to a starting role in 2021. The fifth-year senior became the Huskers’ Friday-night starter in 2022 posting a 4.44 ERA in 15 games.
Everitt marks the last of the returners. The soft-spoken catcher split time with Luke Roskam during 2021 making 32 starts after transferring to Nebraska from Kansas City Kansas Community College. Last year Everitt was the iron man starting in all 53 of the Huskers’ games. His .291 batting average and 41 RBIs finished third and second on the team respectively.
All three captains had the opportunity to hang it up after last year and chose to spend another season in Lincoln. Each is a Nebraska native.
New blood: Brice Matthews and Efry Cervantes
Matthews and Cervantes are far from fresh faces. Both joined the Huskers during the 2021 season.
Cervantes transferred to Nebraska from South Mountain Community College where he spent his first two years of college baseball. He started 14 games for the Huskers in 2021 and grew that number to 37 starts during the past season. The infielder is known for his outstanding defensive work at third base.
Matthews played a key role in the Huskers’ 2021 Big Ten Championship run as a true freshman. The shortstop started 36 games and hit .273 with five home runs.
Matthews struggled at the outset of last season with a significant increase in errors (from six as a freshman to 15 as a sophomore) and strikeouts (from 44 to 67). However, he closed the year on an outstanding run. From April 22 until the end of the season, Matthews hit .378 with 12 RBIs and five home runs.
He saw a reduction in errors, too. The Humble, Texas, native had 13 prior to April 22 with three multi-error games. After the date in question, he had just two fielding miscues.
RELATED: Authenticity, leadership and fun: inside the mind of Brice Matthews
The Huskers open their season in a little over two weeks’ time with a visit to California and a four-game series with the San Diego Toreros. Continued coverage of Nebraska baseball can be found here at HuskerOnline.com.
