Junior left-hander Zach Kroenke is on a roll. He struck out 13 hitters in NU's regional clincher against Creighton on Sunday, and he was  selected by the New York Yankees on Tuesday in the fifth round of the major league draft. Here are Kroenke's thoughts on all of that and all that awaits the Huskers this weekend against Miami:

"(Being drafted) felt good. It's a good feeling knowing somebody else has seen me throw a couple of times, and they feel like I have the potential to be in the big time. My dad isn't a real big fan of the Yankees. My grandpa's a huge fan and my dad wasn't until about five minutes after I got drafted and called him. He was like ‘Let's get some hats' and went and bought his first-ever Yankee piece of apparel.

"That was pretty special, because we had talked about it, joked around ‘If I got drafted by the Yankees, Dad, would you come to my games?' He was like, ‘If they drafted you, I'd be the biggest Yankees fan ever.' It was pretty neat. Right now, I've got to take care of this season.

"We're not trying to get into the hype of ‘It's Miami' and they're supposed to have this great baseball tradition. It doesn't matter what they did in the past (but) what they can do right now. They've got that one good starter (Cesar Carrillo), and we've got Joba (Chamberlain). He's pound-for-pound as good as anybody else. That sits us pretty well for Friday.

"I think (the coaches are) trying to keep things pretty cool. They don't want us getting really excited to the point where we get flustered and we're ‘Oh man, it's a huge game,' and we put all this unnecessary pressure on ourselves. It's just a game. There are worse things that can happen in life, and they've said that to us.

"But losing baseball games really sucks. We're going to be very pumped up, and I think everybody is just going to be more focused than ever for this."