Nebraska baseball’s latest midweek meltdown might be its costliest one of all (2024)

LINCOLN – It’s baseball, so you’re bound to see, every game, something you never thought you would.

Like a double that lands 10 feet from home plate. That’s how Nebraska pitcher Jackson Brockett, coming off a no hitter, gave up his first hit in 10 innings.

South Dakota State designated hitter Thatcher Kozal popped up a ball that, once met by a warm western breeze, drifted into fair territory. By the time it landed near NU catcher Ben Columbus, Kozal was sprinting for second.

The play made for a lark, a gasp from the Haymarket Park crowd. Six innings later, Kozal’s three-run homer, slammed over the right-field fence, made for groans. And when he hit another three-run homer in the top of the ninth inning – off of NU’s ninth pitcher of the night -- it made for silence.

SDSU won 10-6. Nebraska blew a 6-2 lead and suffered another midweek meltdown.

“You’ve got a four-run lead with two innings to go, that should be enough to finish the game. It wasn’t,” NU coach Will Bolt said as the grounds crew pounded the batter’s box with a metal tool. “It wasn’t. Credit to them. They were on the right side of some pretty big swings tonight.”

The Jackrabbits – swept last weekend by Mike Anderson’s 12-32-1 Northern Colorado squad – pounded out 14 hits and scored eight runs across the final two innings. The Huskers, in control before then, left 14 on base.

Nebraska was on the wrong end of another Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday non-conference game. NU is 4-7 in those games since the start of March.

“It’s definitely a focus thing,” third baseman Josh Overbeek said. “We play on the weekends, we get three games against a team, and to go on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and play teams that are closer to you and really treat us and the games against us like a World Series, it definitely creeps into your brain a little bit.”

And Wednesday’s loss is perhaps the costliest one of all, too.

The loss doesn’t affect NU’s Big Ten title chances – Indiana visits this weekend – but it may dash any lingering hopes Nebraska had of grabbing a Top 16 seed and hosting a NCAA Tournament regional. South Dakota State, now at 18-25, is dead last in the Summit League standings and represents a Quadrant 4 loss.

SDSU’s starting pitcher walked four straight Huskers in the bottom of the first inning, scoring Cade Sanderson. The Huskers left the bases loaded, though, and SDSU answered with Kozal’s 10-foot double and a subsequent RBI single in the top of the second.

Overbeek launched a homer well over the right field wall in the bottom of the second. From there, SDSU went through its menu of high-ERA pitchers – Will Kent, Jude Sundquist and Sam Schlecht among them – as Nebraska swung away at mildly errant offerings and ran the basepaths on wild pitches.

NU (30-17) manufactured a run in the fourth and sixth innings. In the fifth, Husker left fielder Riley Silva tripled in a run. In the seventh, pinch hitter Gabe Swansen singled and stole a base, and later got caught – and tagged out – in a pickle between third and home, but Silva eventually scored behind him after a Rhett Stokes single.

Husker pitching coach Rob Childress went through his Rolodex of throwers, too.

Brockett got just three innings, Bolt said, because NU wanted him available for this weekend vs. IU. Caleb Clark struck out four of his six batters before exiting. Jalen Worthley pitched 1 1/3 perfect innings. And when Kyle Froelich allowed three hits in the top of the seventh – loading the bases with Jackrabbits – Childress went to 24-year-old Kyle Perry, who struck out SDSU’s Cade Stuff with some breaking stuff.

Perry struck out one batter in the eighth before Childress trotted out again and called for Rans Sanders, who promptly gave up a single, watched shortstop Dylan Carey mishandle a grounder, and then allowed the three-run homer to Kozal.

“I mean, sure,” Bolt said when asked whether, in hindsight, Perry should have worked against more batters. “You could second-guess any move that was made in the pen tonight.”

Sanders left, and Casey Daiss entered and got two strikeouts to end the inning. NU still led 6-5. In the bottom of the eighth, Nebraska started with two singles before Tyler Stone hit into a double play.

“Hit as ball as hard as you can hit it,” Bolt said of Stone. “Right at the second baseman. They’re right there to make the play…that’s a big momentum shift, right there. I think if we go knock some runs down right there, we probably run away from them.”

In the top of the ninth, Daiss stayed in and got a lineout to start the inning. He then allowed four singles – that scored two runs – before exiting. One of them was what Bolt described as a “two-strike jam job,” a slow chopper that turned into a bang-bang play at first.

SDSU was on the right side of that one, too.

Daiss left. Grant Cleavinger entered and threw four pitches. Kozal blasted the last of them to the same spot in right field for a 10-6 lead.

The Huskers loaded the bases in the ninth before stranding three more runners – 14 for the night.

“We left the door cracked for a good offensive team,” Bolt said, “and they took advantage of it.”

The midweek non-conference games are over for 2024. NU plays Indiana, then a series at Michigan State, followed by Big Ten and NCAA Tournament games.

The Huskers won’t have to size up, on a Tuesday night, another South Dakota State, Creighton, UNO or Kansas for 10 months. But when they do, they’ll probably be viewed as the favorite. Overbeek, who once played at Pittsburgh, noted the advantages Nebraska baseball has, including Haymarket Park, which looks out an aglow Memorial Stadium on a spring evening.

“It’s high class,” Overbeek said. “It’s something that’s been a blessing for me to be a part of. But, yeah, everybody wants to be a Husker, and then you wear that across your chest, and that over your heart, it means a lot more. And when people see that, they want that.”