NU extended its winning streak to 13, matching the longest during sixth-year coach Mike Anderson's tenure, and improved to 14-2.
CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Sunday, March 16, 2008 7:00 pm
MANHATTAN, Kan. — Trailing 3-2 entering the ninth inning and about to face Kansas State’s preseason All-American closer Daniel Edwards, it would have been easy for the Nebraska baseball team to go home feeling content over winning the first two games of its series against the Wildcats.
Instead, ‘Getaway Day’ turned into ‘Youth Movement Day,’ as the Huskers got late-game heroics from three freshmen to pull out a 5-3, 10-inning victory at Tointon Stadium.
By extending its winning streak to 13 games, NU overcame a ninth-inning deficit for the first time in 35 contests dating to the 2006 season.
“I don’t think I’ve seen this dugout as excited as it was,” said freshman left fielder David Stewart, who started the ninth with a double.
After redshirt freshman Mike Nesseth (2-0) pitched around back-to-back singles with two outs in the bottom of the ninth by striking out pinch hitter Derek Bunker and Brett Scott, Nebraska got another clutch at-bat from true freshman Dan Johnston.
The Papillion-La Vista graduate — who’d had entered the game as a pinch runner for Stewart in the ninth and scored the tying run on DJ Belfonte’s one-out sacrifice fly — came up to bat with two outs and runners at the corners. Jake Opitz had singled to lead off the inning, moved to second on a bunt by Mitch Abeita and, after Bryce Nimmo walked, took third on a pop-out to center.
Edwards then put Johnston in a 0-2 hole before the freshman took a pitch outside the strike zone that Nimmo advanced to second on without a throw. Johnston, 3-for-9 in his brief time as a Husker, then lined Edwards’ next delivery into the left-center gap for a two-run single.
“I think we just wanted to battle and do whatever we could for the team,” Johnston said of he and Stewart. “I don’t think we knew who we were facing or even thought about it.”
As he spoke, Johnston could hear soft chants of “Dan The Man” coming from his older teammates in the dugout.
“I don’t think this whole year I’ll get off the hook from those guys,” he said, smiling.
Nor will he care if the Huskers continue producing these kinds of results.
Nebraska had taken a 2-0 lead on Abeita’s fourth homer in the second, but it looked like failing to score after getting runners to third with only one out in both of the first two innings might come back to cost the Huskers.
K-State, held hitless by Aaron Pribanic through four innings, tied the game in the fifth on a double by Nate Tenbrink and a single by Jurica Carter that were sandwiched around an error by Opitz and an RBI groundout.
The Wildcats then put Nebraska behind for the first time in 77 innings in the sixth, when Drew Biery drew a walk off Zach Herr, moved to second on a sacrifice and scored on Justin Bloxom’s single to right.
Nebraska then missed a prime opportunity in the seventh, when Nick Sullivan, who’d led off with a double, got thrown out trying to advance on Ben Kline’s sharp grounder that shortstop Biery snagged up the middle.
Leave it to the three freshmen to help the Huskers get out of a sour mood.
“Wow! That’s all you can say,” said the sophomore Belfonte. “It was a great recruiting class, we knew that. But they’re just shining more than we ever thought — especially at this point.
“You can’t say enough about Dan Johnston and David Stewart there. It gets you excited for the future.”
Stewart, who struck out while facing Edwards in the ninth inning of Friday’s 3-2 victory, was in a bind again before lacing a 0-2 pitch over the outer half of the plate the opposite way into the left field corner.
“David will present himself sometimes as just kind of a naïve young man, but I’m going to tell you this, he’s extremely competitive at the plate,” Nebraska coach Mike Anderson said. “He keeps putting good wood on the ball. He’ll get fooled, but then he comes back and looks good, too.”
Same thing held true for both Johnston and Nesseth, too.
“Some guys got a chance to step up, and a lot of them did,” Johnston said. “It was a good day for the younger guys.”
And just maybe a day the Huskers will look back on a couple months from now as a defining moment to a team that’s now 14-2 and the only one in the Big 12 to have swept its league-opening series.
“Fun to see,” said Anderson, whose club now plays host to Arkansas on Tuesday and Wednesday. “Had we not won that game, I still felt like we were very determined. The kids showed a lot of heart.”
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.