Oregon State scored three runs in the top of the seventh inning Sunday at Haymarket Park to take a 7-6 lead. In the bottom of the seventh, the first two Huskers struck out.
Was it here we go again for Nebraska baseball?
The Huskers had opened the series with 7-3 victory against the then-fifth-ranked Beavers Friday, before losing 16-5 Saturday, a game in which Oregon State hit eight home runs.
After the strikeouts Sunday, Case Sanderson walked. Then Cayden Brumbaugh and Dylan Carey got hit by pitches to load the bases. With two strikes, Tyler Stone singled in two runs as Nebraska regained the lead, 8-7. Then pinch-hitter Max Buettenback hit a three-run home run.
“Right before I went up, Coach (Will) Bolt was like, ‘Hey, watch for a fastball in,’” said Buettenback. “I was like, ‘All right, I’m going to sit on that pitch,’ and got it. So I’m going to thank him for that.”
Buettenback said his eyes got wide when he saw the pitch coming.
“He was ready for it,” Bolt said. “Kind of the theme of this week when going back to trying to get some training with our hitters, to get in the right spot, was just trust your move, trusting what you’re doing.”
The Huskers’ at-bat didn’t end with Buettenback. Six more came to bat in the inning, getting three more hits, including an RBI single by Riley Silva and a two-run single by Brumbaugh, and four more runs.
“That was the knife to the heart,” said Silva. “So we knew after that, you know, game’s over.”
Hogan Helligso added a solo home run in the eighth, after which the game ended.
Final score: Nebraska 16, Oregon State 7.
The game ended after the eighth because of the Beavers’ travel schedule; it was determined no inning could begin after 4:16 p.m. The game start was delayed an hour because of cold temperatures.
“Our pitchers have picked us up so many games, so for our hitters to finally pick it up and finally help our pitchers out, it means so much to the team and to the pitchers, to know we have their back, and we just have everyone together,” said Silva, who was 3-for-4 with three runs scored and the RBI.
The Huskers left 12 runners on base, including the bases loaded three times, in Saturday’s loss. But Oregon State’s eight home runs, including three by Gavin Turley, would’ve been tough to overcome. Starter Will Walsh allowed only two earned runs in six innings and Drew Christo pitched three scoreless innings Friday night. Stone, Brumbaugh and Cael Frost hit home runs in the victory.
Frost also hit a home run Saturday.
Sunday’s game “was just a total team effort, and it was picking each other up because again, it looked like one of those games where we just didn’t get it done out of the bullpen,” Bolt said.
Not getting it done out of the bullpen, after starter Ty Horn gave up four home runs and five earned runs in three innings, was a point of emphasis for Bolt following Saturday’s loss.
It ended after seven innings because of the 10-run rule.
Nebraska is slated to play nonconference games against Creighton in Lincoln Tuesday and at Omaha Wednesday before resuming Big Ten play with a weekend series against Rutgers at Haymarket Park.
The Huskers are 12-15, including 2-7 in conference play.
“We knew we were better than we were performing offensively, and now that you see some of the ‘barrels,’ it’s contagious the way it goes,” said Bolt. “I told the team I truly think that if the calendar turned into April with the tests that we’ve had up to this point, this is ours to go take.
“But we’ve got to make it matter now. We’ve got a five-day week coming up, and we just need to keep the momentum going.”
