Cowboys thump Nebraska to take series
digg it!
Facebook
del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit
BY CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star
STILLWATER, Okla. — It started back in the early 1980s, when Pete Incaviglia was making a mockery of NCAA home run records.
Every Oklahoma State baseball player who homered at Allie P. Reynolds Stadium would circle the bases listening to the funky sounds of The Gap Band’s ‘You Dropped A Bomb On Me.’ Call it rubbing salt into the wound, if you will.
Well, the tradition lives, but by the time Nebraska heard it here Saturday, the Huskers’ ears should have already been ringing.
Rebel Ridling’s two-run shot in the seventh inning, the only homer hit Saturday, capped the Cowboys’ 19-2 victory.
That’s right, one day after the 21st-ranked Cowboys won the first 1-0 game in the stadium’s 28-year-old history, they bashed the No. 6 Huskers with a 24-hit attack. That guaranteed NU of leaving town Sunday on the short end of a Big 12 Conference series for the first time in its past eight series, dating to last April.
Just a bad day at the office, according to the Huskers, who are still 24-6-1 overall but relinquished first place to Texas A&M after falling to 10-3-1 in league play.
“I don’t think that score shows us not being ready,” senior catcher Mitch Abeita said.
Nebraska coach Mike Anderson echoed that sentiment.
He also had a longer-than-usual visit with his club in right field after the game. And when the Huskers broke out of that huddle, pitching coach Eric Newman called in his troops for a further chat.
“I’m not challenging them at all, just making sure they believe in themselves,” Anderson said after watching OSU produce the most hits ever against one of his teams. “We’re the type of team that ... if we get a good pitching performance and we hit a little bit, we’ll win.
“There’s a certain style and certain matchups. Right now, they’ve matched up pretty well against us and done pretty well. But everything’s that happened in the past doesn’t mean anything tomorrow anyway.”
The teams conclude their series Sunday, with Nebraska needing a win to avoid getting swept for the first time since suffering that fate at Baylor two years ago.
The Huskers should hope whatever it was that affected their play Saturday is short-lived.
The three runs they allowed on two wild pitches and a passed ball equaled what they’d given up that way in their first 30 games. Unfortunately, that was far from being the only thing that led to such a lopsided loss.
It might have begun in the third inning, when NU’s Ben Kline led off with a double with the game tied 1-1. But rather than trying to move him up with a bunt, DJ Belfonte swung away and flew out shallow enough in center field that Kline couldn’t advance, and Oklahoma State’s Tyler Lyons got out of the inning unscathed.
“In that situation, I’m just supposed to hit a ball to the ride side hard and I may have got a little anxious,” Belfonte said. “I think everybody in the ballpark kind of expected a bunt, but Coach ‘A’ trusted me to get the job done and I just didn’t come through. It’s my fault.”
Still tied in the bottom of the fourth, Oklahoma State’s Luis Flores hit a fly ball to left with one out that Dan Johnston opted to play safely rather than try to make a catch and risk the ball getting past him. That seemed minor at the time, but the Cowboys followed with five consecutive hits en route to taking a 7-1 lead.
Then, in the fifth, NU shortstop Kline let what looked like a potential inning-ending, double-play grounder go into center field. Instead of getting out of the inning having given up only one more run, the Huskers ended up being down 15-1.
“I don’t look that much into it,” Abeita said. “I know there’s some things we did wrong, (but) they came out to play. They’re a good ballclub.”
Indeed, Oklahoma State, 14-1 at home, is now 23-9 overall and 8-6 in the Big 12.
And what the Cowboys have done in the first two games vs. Nebraska is certainly enough to test how much energy the Huskers will have Sunday.
“Obviously, nobody wants a game like that,” said senior pitcher Thad Weber, who lasted just 31/3 innings and lost for the first time in seven outings. “We got away from what we’ve done to be successful, and they took advantage. We’ll forget about it as soon as we leave the park and come back tomorrow.
“I think we’ll be OK. It happened out at Stanford and we bounced back just fine after that (a 17-7, season-opening loss). It’s obviously not acceptable to lose a series like this, but you have to get the thought that we need to come back tomorrow and keep preparing the way we’ve been preparing and win a game before we get out of here.”
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.
Most Commented news