Twenty-third ranked Nebraska (Overall: 27-11, Big Ten: 5-4) watched a four-run lead entering the seventh inning disappear, but shortstop Jake Placzek’s RBI single in the top of the ninth inning gave the Huskers the lead and a 7-6 win over Creighton (Overall: 20-10, Big East: 5-1) on Tuesday night at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha.
Photos from the game c/o Mike Spomer (order here):
“There’s not much normal about what happened out there,” said Nebraska head coach Darin Erstad. “We’ve played some crazy games against Creighton, especially in this place, and this is right up there — just awful baseball. Plain and simple. We didn’t take care of the ball and we weren’t real sharp on our communication. We were very reactive tonight. Very reactive to them scoring runs. We got a two-spot after their two-spot, then got a four-spot, but after that I don’t think we mounted anything when we had an opportunity to put them away.”
“We reacted to what they did. It’s a credit to our guys that they did that, but it just wasn’t sustained today. Defensively I think it’s safe to say we’ve played better.”
Unlike the first meeting between the two schools this season, it was Creighton’s aggressive hitting and Nebraska’s miscues that resulted in the Bluejays taking an early lead. After managing only two hits in eight innings against Nebraska right-handed pitcher Garett King down in Lincoln, the Bluejays jumped all over him in the first. Sophomore center fielder Daniel Woodrow got things started with single at the edge of the grass between first and second. Sophomore shortstop Nicky Lopez followed it up by slapping a double down the line in left field. They both came home to score when the next hitter up, junior first baseman Reagan Fowler, grounded to Jake Schleppenbach at second base. As the pitcher and first baseman converged to cover the bag, first baseman Scott Schreiber fell down and Schleppenbach’s throw sailed towards the Nebraska dugout. Woodrow and Lopez scored easily to give the Bluejays a 2-0 lead after just three batters.
Reagan Fowler scores the tying run in the 8th (WBR/Mike Spomer)
A wild inning on the mound and shaky defense behind the plate by Creighton allowed the Nebraska offense to get going quickly in the top of the second inning. Jeff Albrecht walked Ben Miller and Austin Darby to begin the inning and end his night as Creighton head coach Ed Servais brought right-handed pitcher Taylor Elman in from the bullpen. Junior catcher Joey Mancuso had trouble handling a couple of Elman’s pitches, allowing Miller to score after the second passed ball.
Later in the same inning Nebraska sophomore center fielder Ryan Boldt tied the game with a double into left field to bring in first baseman Scott Schreiber.
Nebraska broke the game open in top of the third inning with a four-run frame to take a 6-2 lead over Creighton. This time they didn’t need much help from Bluejay pitchers to get the job done. With two men on, Schreiber got the scoring started with an RBI single up the middle into center field to give Nebraska the lead. Senior left fielder Christian Cox, fresh off a two-home run game against Minnesota on Sunday, delivered again for the Huskers when he ripped a two-run double down the line in left field to extend the lead to 5-2. Next up, Jake Schleppenbach delivered an RBI single down the right field line to bring home Cox and cap off the four-run third inning for the Huskers.
“That first inning I thought we were doing pretty well and then things kind of went downhill a little from there,” said Creighton junior relief pitcher Connor Miller. “I’m not really sure what all happened.”
Once the damage was done, Miller came in to keep the Nebraska offense at bay and give his team a chance to comeback, and he succeeded in doing so. Over his 4 and 2/3 innings of work, the junior college transfer allowed only a single and a double. He only struck out one batter, but he lived in the zone, throwing 68% of his 56 pitches for strikes.
“I was just trying to keep us in the ball game,” Miller said. “I knew that our hitters were going to give us a chance hopefully at the end, and I just threw strikes with all of my pitches and let my defense work.”
The hitters did their part once the seventh inning came around. Junior third baseman Harrison Crawford started the rally with a solo home run into the left field bullpen. With two strikes, Crawford said he was just trying to put something in play. He ended up failing to do that, but no one in the Creighton dugout was complaining about the result.
“Once I get into two strikes I just try to find a way to compete and do the best I can to put the ball in play,” Crawford said. “He gave me a fastball in, something I was looking for. It felt good off the bat. I saw the outfielder go back and I just kept my head down really. I saw him jump for, but I didn’t know if he robbed it or not. I heard the crowd cheer and it felt good off the bat so I was excited.”
The Bluejays capitalized on the momentum as designated hitter Matt Gandy singled and right fielder Kevin Connolly drew a walk to chase King from the game. Gandy came around to score in the next at-bat when senior catcher Kevin Lamb hit a ball up the middle that took a hop and got by Schleppenbach. Daniel Woodrow stepped up next and delivered a sacrifice fly to center field that allowed Connolly to score easily from third base and cut Nebraska’s lead to 6-5 entering the eighth inning.
Harrison Crawford would find himself up again in the eighth, this time with runners at the corners after Reagan Fowler doubled and junior second baseman Ryan Fitzgerald singled to move Fowler to third base. Crawford again found himself in a two-strike count, but this time swung and missed on a designed hit-and-run. Fitzgerald raced towards second and slid in safely as some miscommunication by the second baseman and shortstop allowed the throw to bounce away and Fowler came home to tie the game.
Nebraska senior closer Josh Roeder struck out Gandy to end the inning, then Jake Schleppenbach atoned for his error in the seventh inning by leading off the ninth with a double off Bluejay reliever Ethan DeCaster that hit the base of the wall in right field. Ryan Boldt singled to put runners at the corners and junior shortstop Jake Placzek drove in the go-ahead run with a single up the middle off Creighton closer David Gerber.
“The approach is to not let [Gerber] get the first strike on us,” Placzek said. “After that I just tried to stay in the middle of the field. Like coach said, he’s a sidearm guy and I thought if I tried to pull off or pull anything it would probably not have been as successful as I was sticking to the middle of the field.”
Roeder allowed the tying run to reach with one out, but a hard line drive by Woodrow ended up in right fielder Austin Darby’s glove, and Lopez grounded out to second to end the game and give Nebraska the season series win over the Bluejays with only one game remaining between the two clubs.
Next up for the Bluejays is a three-game series with co-Big East leader St. John’s that could decide the regular season race and the top overall seed in the Big East Tournament. Creighton head coach Ed Servais hopes the tough loss to Nebraska will eat at his players and serve as motivation for this weekend’s home slate with the Red Storm.
“They should be disappointed and I hope they are,” Servais said. “I hope they’re disappointed all night. I hope it gnaws at them a little bit tonight and tomorrow. Then when we come to practice tomorrow at 3:30 we’ll let it go, we’ll turn the page and get on to St. John’s, but I don’t want games like this to be forgotten about in five minutes. These are important opportunities for us. We talked about it before the game. I’m not going to let it go for awhile either, because if you do then I don’t think it means that much to you.”
“This is going to sit with them for awhile, I hope it does, and tomorrow afternoon we’ll turn the page and get on to St. John’s, but we learned some really important lessons tonight in starting the game, we had a miscommunication in the ninth inning that cost us an extra base hit by Nebraska. We have to clean that stuff up. You play these game to prepare for your weekends, and this game will do a lot for us in our preparation for this weekend.”
The Bluejays and Red Storm (Overall: 19-12, Big East: 5-1) will start their three-game series with a 6:00 p.m. contest at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha on Friday, April 17. The game will be televised on Fox Sports 1. Projected starters for the opening game are Rollie Lacy for Creighton and Cody Stashak for St. John’s.