As the great Yogi Berra once said, “It was de ja vu all over again.” After squandering a lead against Louisville yesterday, Nebraska did the same again tonight at Globe Life Field against Kansas State.
Border rivals Nebraska and Kansas State faced off for the 295th in their history. Tonight, the boys in purple got the best of their northern neighbors 5-3.
After both pitchers, Carson Jasa for Nebraska and Donte Lewis for K-State came out hot in the first inning, the Wildcats jumped on top in their half of the second, manufacturing a run that started with Dee Kennedy drawing a lead-off walk. He stole second and advanced to third on a fly out to rightfield by Shintaro Inoue, then scored on a single by Carlos Vasquez.
Two-out hitting returned momentarily for the Big Red in the bottom of the third. With one out, Mac Moyer reached on a single. After a Jett Buck pop-up, Case Sanderson sent a floater down the third base line that dropped in for a double. With two runners in scoring position and two outs, Joshua Overbeek came up big, smoking a double deep in the right center gap to score two. After three innings it was Nebraska on top, 2-1.
Jasa seemed to settle in after giving up the second inning run and the offense struck again in the fifth on a wild play. Jeter Worthley ripped a double to the leftfield corner and Moyer earned a walk. Two batters later, Case Sanderson hit a ground ball deep in the hole between first and second. Inoue made an off-balance throw to force Moyer at second. However, Kennedy’s throw the first was wide and hit Sanderson in the shoulder as he was nearing the base. With the ball rolling toward the Nebraska dugout, Worthley scored and Sanderson advanced to second. Overbeek followed with a single and that was it for Lewis. Unfortunately, new Wildcat pitcher Carson Liggett got Dylan Carey to pop-up for the final out.
If you believe in bad omens, the fact that Jasa hit lead-off batter Robby Bolin with the first pitch, you would be proven correct. He did get Micah Kendrick to strike out and A.J. Evasco to ground out, but then surrendered back-to-back walks to Kennedy and Inoue. Three runners on base all on free passes. After a visit from Coach Childress, the Wildcats cashed in on a single by Vasquez that scored two to tie the game 3-3. Jasa’s day was done and J’Shawn Unger came in and struck out Ty Smolinski to stop the bleeding.
Unger sat the Cats down in order in the eighth inning, but then the bottom fell out of the Cornhusker bullpen. After giving up a base hit to Kendrick, Coach Childress pulled Unger in favor of a left-on-left match up, bringing in Grant Cleavinger. He walked Evasco on four straight pitches and was pulled. In came Kevin Mannell with two on and no outs. After getting Kennedy to fly out to left field, he walked Inoue to load the bases. Carlos Vasquez then got his third hit of the game, ripping a two RBI single to leftfield. Wildcats were now in front 5-3.
Liggett took care of the rest, retiring the Cornhuskers the rest of the way with three-up-three down in each of the final two innings. He got the win, while the one hit that J’Shawn Unger gave up happened to score, giving him the loss.
This was a frustrating one tonight as Nebraska only gave up four hits to K-State and recorded nine strike outs. But those free passes came back to haunt them as they walked seven and hit one batter. Of the five K-State runs, four were by Wildcats that either walked or were hit by a pitch. That was the biggest difference in the game tonight.
Nebraska wraps up their trip to Texas Sunday with a 2:30 first pitch against Florida State. The Seminoles are ranked 16th in the nation, but fell to Auburn today in a game earlier in the day.