Nebraska baseball didn’t start off the weekend in College Park, Maryland, right, losing to Maryland 12-5 Friday night. But the Huskers finished with a 21-5 blowout in seven innings Sunday to win the series.
They defeated Maryland 6-2 Saturday.
“I think we have one of the best offenses in the country when we’re locked in and focused and intentful in how we go about our business,” Coach Will Bolt said on Huskers.com following Sunday’s game, in which Nebraska scored its 21 runs on 19 hits, including two home runs and six doubles.
Gabe Swansen and Cayden Brumbaugh hit the home runs, Swansen’s a grand slam, his second in as many weekends. The grand slam came in the first inning, with two strikes, after the first three batters drew walks. Swansen, who was 4-for-5, also hit two doubles and drove in seven runs.
“’Swany,’ just like last (Saturday), he gets two strikes on him pretty quick and then gets to a really good fastball on a day that the wind’s not blowing out and put a wonderful swing on it,” Bolt said of the home run. “I mean seven RBI, a total run-producer in the four-spot (cleanup).”
Swansen’s grand slam last week also came in the first inning against Northwestern.
Joshua Overbeek was 3-for-5 with a double and five runs-batted-in. Brumbaugh was 2-for-3, his home run a solo, and scored four runs. Nebraska last scored 21 runs in the 2019 opener against UC Riverside.
The Huskers had “relentless at-bats” up and down the order, said Bolt.
The Huskers were up 11-0 after three innings. Maryland scored five runs in the fourth, but Nebraska responded with five runs in the fifth, to leave little doubt where things were headed.
“It’d be easy to take an at-bat off whenever the score gets lopsided,” said Bolt. “But we really stayed with the team, kept the line moving and just took really, really committed swings all day.”
Eleven Huskers had base hits, including sophomore Hayden Lewis, who was 0-for-5 on the season. He pinch hit in the seventh and doubled in the final run.
Starter Jackson Brockett went five innings and earned his second win, against three losses. Maryland’s five-run inning was facilitated by two Husker errors. Only two of the runs were earned. Beyond that, Brockett was “fantastic,” according to Bolt. He walked two and struck out four.
Ty Horn pitched six scoreless innings to earn his second victory against four losses Saturday. Nebraska had four doubles and a home run among its 11 hits, the home run by Case Sanderson, his sixth.
Nebraska built a 5-0 lead with a three-run fifth before Maryland finally scored in the seventh.
Brumbaugh also hit a home run Friday night, but the Terrapins hit four. The Huskers cut the deficit to 6-5 with a run in the seventh, but Maryland responded with five runs in the bottom of the inning.
The Huskers were able to flush that and improve to 9-12 in the Big Ten and 21-23 overall. Maryland dropped to 20-25 and 6-15. Nebraska has won its last two conference series.
“We played awesome today,” Bolt said on Huskers.com Sunday. “Showed up in a big way.”
Nebraska has three conference series remaining, the next two at home against Minnesota and Michigan, the last at Purdue. The Huskers are scheduled to play Kansas State in Lincoln Tuesday.
