Huskers win 8-1, complete sweep of Jays
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BY CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star
OMAHA — Mitch Abeita’s body could have used a night off. Nebraska’s baseball team wanted to keep rolling.
Guess what? Abeita triggered another win by the fifth-ranked Huskers.
The senior catcher, behind the plate for all 34 innings of NU’s three-game, weekend series against Texas A&M, hit a three-run, first-inning homer, and later drove in another run during NU’s 8-1 victory win against Creighton at Rosenblatt Stadium on Tuesday.
“I’m always happy to play baseball,” said Abeita.
It’s becoming contagious with the Huskers, who while sweeping a regular-season series from the Bluejays for the second time in three years improved their record to 39-9-1.
First baseman Tyler Farst, who’s getting his opportunity while Craig Corriston recovers from arthroscopic knee surgery, produced his first three-hit game at NU and drove in a pair of runs.
Freshman David Stewart, who drove in seven runs during Nebraska’s doubleheader sweep on Sunday, came off the bench to go 2-for-3.
And redshirt freshman Andy Cotton, getting a rare start at shortstop, got a hit — just his second of the season — and made a heady defensive play to cut down a Creighton runner to end the fourth inning.
“A lot of things got established,” Nebraska coach Mike Anderson said. “We got a lead, I thought that helped our energy. And then Erik Bird and Casey Hauptman, that’s wonderful to see two Omaha kids (do that). I know they were motivated.”
The right-handed junior Bird, an Omaha Burke graduate, held Creighton to a run on three hits over five innings to notch his fifth win in six decisions. Hauptman, a freshman from Millard South, faced the minimum over the final four innings and struck out a career-high six to pick up his first save.
Their performances came in front of a crowd of 14,650 — the second largest to watch a college game this season.
Nebraska showed no effect from its emotional wins on Sunday, when it scored five ninth-inning runs to win the opener, then rallied from a five-run deficit over the final four innings to win the nightcap.
“I think we come out with the same intensity every game. If we don’t, we’ve got leaders on the team that will let us know,” Abeita said. “I mean, we’re always going to bring ourselves up to play.”
The Huskers struck quickly against Creighton left-handed freshman Greg Hellhake, who in his previous seven starts this season had allowed just 10 combined runs.
Hellhake had thrown five shutout innings against NU on April 22, but on Tuesday he allowed five over 4 1/3.
NU got all the offense it needed on Abeita’s eighth home run of the season, a shot he launched the opposite way to right field. Jake Mort had reached on a bloop single before Jake Opitz doubled off the right-field wall.
“He had been coming in with fastballs that whole at-bat and he just happened to leave one out over the plate that I could reach,” Abeita said.
Creighton (33-18) got its only run on Vicente Cararo’s RBI single that glanced off left fielder Dan Johnston. On the play, Steve Winkelmann tried to score, but Cotton alertly had gone to help in left and retrieved the ball before throwing a strike to Abeita to easily get Winkelmann at the plate.
Nebraska returns to action with a three-game, regular-season ending series at Missouri this weekend. The Huskers need to pick up two games on Big 12 leader A&M to win their first league title since 2005.
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.
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