Nebraska baseball splits Sunday games, wins Iowa series

Despite a host of weather obstacles and a delay that lasted over 24 hours, Nebraska and Iowa completed their three-game series on Sunday afternoon.

Will Bolt’s Huskers locked up a series win in run-rule fashion by claiming a 12-2 victory after the resumption of Saturday’s suspended game. Nebraska blasted three home-runs and Josh Caron pieced together a phenomenal day at the plate finishing 3-for-4 with two doubles, a home run and three RBIs.

The Hawkeyes answered with a dominant showing from Brody Brecht. He and reliever Jack Young combined to strike out the Huskers a season-high 15 times. Stellar pitching and clutch offense with two outs helped Iowa salvage the series with a 4-1 win.

“It was a long day at the park,” Bolt said. “I’m awfully proud of our team and how we responded after that first half of the game on Friday. Coming back and winning that game, having a game that, 8-1 feels pretty in hand but when you have to split it into two days and you have a runner on base and they get a double. There were some moments in that game that we handled the ball well and we finished that game off the right way.”

Here’s how each of the weekend’s final two games played out.

Join HuskerOnline today and get your first month of a premium subscription for just $1!

Controlling the middle innings has been a point of emphasis for Nebraska of late. The Huskers checked that box on Saturday.

Tied at 1-1 entering the bottom of the fourth, NU immediately put pressure on Iowa starter Aaron Savary. A Josh Caron double and Ben Columbus single put the Huskers’ in front to leadoff the inning. Rhett Stokes made it 4-1 with a clutch two-out single to right three batters later.

Nebraska doubled its run total in the fifth off two-run jacks from Caron and Cole Evans.

Mason McConnaughey bounced back after a rough outing a week prior against Maryland in which he allowed five earned runs in just 1 2/3 innings of work. The weather delay cut his outing against the Hawkeyes short, but the righty’s final line included two earned runs and four strikeouts over 5 1/3 innings.

His second earned run scored on a base hit allowed by Caleb Clark upon the game’s resumption on Sunday.

It seemed for a moment as if that run had afforded the Hawkeyes some momentum. But, Nebraska cracked back with a run on a Caron RBI double and plated three more runs in the seventh. Josh Overbeek launched a homer to right before Tyler Stone drove in one on a single and Clay Bradford’s bases-loaded walk ended the game via run-rule at 12-2.

Iowa, and Brecht, had their way in the series finale.

For the sixth time this year, the preseason All-American candidate struck out at least 11 batters. He coughed up just a run in seven innings of work and allowed just five Huskers to reach base. It marked the second straight week Brecht had recorded a start of seven innings or longer, while allowing less than one run, tallying double-digit strikeouts and throwing more than 108 pitches.

“That was vintage Brody Brecht right there,” Bolt said. “He was on attack. A leadoff walk there and he didn’t give us much else after that. I thought we took a couple good swings in the fourth inning, but he was attacking with that slider, the fastball was really good, he had a good split going as well and it was tough sledding in the box.”

Nebraska gave up four separate two-out runs. Two of those four came on solo blasts, one for Raider Tello and the other off the bat of Gable Mitchell.

Caron’s sacrifice fly in the fourth marked the Huskers’ only run. Just Case Sanderson and Stone posted hits. Meanwhile, seven different Nebraska arms made appearances and helped to keep the game in striking distance for the team’s floundering bats. Will Walsh (74) and Casey Daiss (12) represented the two Huskers to throw double-digit pitches.

“I thought Walsh was good, he just didn’t finish his innings,” Bolt said. “A couple two-out homers and a two-out double with two strikes that kept him from having five shutout innings. The guys who came out of the pen, it was good to see them have some good outings for us and gain some confidence.”

What’s next for Nebraska baseball?

A five-game week is ahead of Nebraska. The Huskers will close their midweek series with the Creighton Bluejays in Omaha on Tuesday night at 6:00 p.m. CT before returning home to face Kansas State on Wednesday. First pitch is slated for 6:05 p.m. CT and the game can be streamed on Big Ten Plus.

Finally, the Huskers will close out the week in the Twin Cities against Minnesota. All three games will also be on Big Ten Plus and can be heard on the Huskers Radio Network.