Nebraska's baseball team will welcome a change of scenery after a lost weekend here.
CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Saturday, May 17, 2008 7:00 pm
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Mitch Abeita took the lost weekend like a loyal catcher and swore he’d love to play Missouri again later this season.
Yes, even after the 12th-ranked Tigers finished a three-game sweep by tearing through the No. 5 Huskers’ usually reliable pitching staff again during a 7-3 triumph in Taylor Stadium on Sunday. It was the first time the Huskers were swept in Big 12 play since Baylor pulled the trick in 2006.
“It was just a couple bad outings (by starters) and it turned into a couple of guys in the bullpen having bad outings,” Abeita said after NU ended the regular season on its first three-game losing streak. “It’s just something you’ve got to put behind you.”
Now 39-12-1, the Huskers missed out on a chance to earn the No. 2 seed for this week’s Big 12 Conference tournament in Oklahoma City, and will instead be No. 3 and open against Baylor at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
While that might seem a small matter, NU now will have to count on beating No. 2 seed Oklahoma State in pool play if it hopes to advance from its four-team bracket to the tourney championship — a feat it likely needs to accomplish to be considered for one of the eight national seeds in the NCAA Tournament.
None of those things will happen unless Nebraska, which has counted on stellar pitching all season, can recover from being blasted off the mound by the Tigers.
On Sunday, NU starter Aaron Pribanic was handed a 1-0 lead in the top of the second inning only to then walk three and give up three hits in the bottom half to allow Missouri to go up 3-1.
Like Saturday starter Thad Weber, Pribanic didn’t survive the second, and the Huskers’ bullpen couldn’t patch things up.
NU trailed just 5-3 after Ben Kline’s second two-out RBI single of the game in the sixth, but Mizzou, like it did all weekend, had an immediate answer.
After reliever Erik Anderson plunked Kyle Mach with a pitch, Nebraska went to left-handed sophomore Joe Hatasaki, who hadn’t taken the mound in a Big 12 game when the run differential was fewer than eight. Hataski then threw two strikes to Greg Folgia before the Tigers’ top-of-the-order hitter drove a 0-2 delivery over the left-field wall.
It marked the seventh straight time in the series that Missouri had scored in the bottom half of the same inning the Huskers had produced a run.
“This league is all about timing,” Tigers coach Tim Jamieson said. “We played A&M when they were on fire (and got swept). We played Nebraska when they weren’t playing their best. The results kind of speak for themselves.”
During the series, Nebraska used 11 pitchers. Of those, only Johnny Dorn (1.35), Anderson (4.50) and Hatasaki (4.50) had earned-run averages of under 10.00.
“Whether it was matchups, balls or strikes, you name it, there’s a lot of things that happened this weekend and you just go ‘It wasn’t our weekend,’ ” NU coach Mike Anderson said. “… I wouldn’t even say this is adversity. I’d say this is just a great lesson for us and ‘What can we do to get better?’
“I don’t think there’s ever a great time to have a loss, but I don’t think it’s at a bad time, either. I think a bad time is in a few weeks.”
Obviously, NU hopes to be playing for bigger stakes then. In the meantime, it’s back to the drawing board and looking forward to a change in scenery.
“If it was up to me, man, I’d like to play them again,” Abeita said of the Tigers after being asked if he was ready to get out of town and head to Oklahoma City. “I’m betting on playing them again some day.”
Briefly
n Nebraska’s second and third games of the Big 12 Tournament also will be 4 p.m. starts. The Huskers will face No. 7 seed Kansas State on Friday before playing the second-seeded Cowboys on Saturday.
The team with the best three-game record advances to Sunday’s championship. Two-way ties are broken by head-to-head results. If more than two teams have the same record, the highest-seeded team moves on.
n Pitching coach Eric Newman plans to start left-handed junior Dan Jennings against Baylor, and follow with right-handed seniors Johnny Dorn and Thad Weber on Friday and Saturday.
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.