HuskersDue to inclimate weather postponing the remainder of the 3rd game, the Husker’s 4th and final game of the series was cancelled.  Despite an inspired performance from starter Dan Jennings, the Huskers came up short losing 4-2 to the Stanford Cardinal. 

Jennings picked up right where he left off on Saturday and held the Cardinal hitters scoreless for the 3rd and 4th innings. From there Junior College transfer Aaron Pribanic took the Huskers deep into the seventh.  With 2 out, Pribanic walked Cord Phelps on a full count to keep the inning alive.  In came reliever Erik Bird who gave up a line drive double to tie the game at 1. 

Herr replaced Bird and the wheels came off.  Herr got what appeared to be an inning ending ground ball to Senior 2nd baseman Jake Opitz, but his throw sailed wide.  Herr made a great play on the ball backing up first base and had the runner rounding 3rd dead in his sights.  However, after a long weekend of pouring rain, the ball slipped from his hands and sailed allowing the go ahead run to score.

The Husker’s woes continued in the 7th when the next batter hit a two run smash to give the Cardinal a 4-1 lead.

The boys tried to take back the lead when Jeff Tezak doubled home Opitz in the 8th to notch the game at 4-2.  Florida Transfer Cody Neer drew the walk to put runners on 1st and 2nd, but Jeff Abeita struck out to end the threat.

Despite losing the series 2-1, the weekend wasn’t a total loss for the Huskers.  We saw a great effort by a young team that could suprise some people this year.  They played hard, they never gave up or got down.  Even with Stanford commading a 17-0 lead, the Huskers fought and scratched to get 7 of those runs back and then proceeded to pour it on for the 2nd game win.   The last game was a gritty battle where the deciding factor was some moisture on the ball from the pouring rains that drenched the field. 

Dan Jennings performance today was definitely worth noting.  Combined with the home stretch from last season, Dan’s been on a roll and really controlling the game.  I really expect him to emerge as the #2 guy in this rotation behind Dorn.  JC transfer Pribanic also looked very sharp, but lacked a little of the control that we saw from Jennings.  Nesseth has looked sharp as well and should be a valuable commodity out of the bullpen.

The biggest issues we had this weekend could very easily be chalked up to early season jitters.  Espeically since the weather never really permitted the team to practice outdoors.  The team had too many errors (8), but again a lot of that can be chalked up to not having enough time on a real field.  The hitting and baserunning was agressive for a change.  The players seemed to have more of a winning attitude and much more team oriented.  This is a very distant observation of the few times I saw the team this weekend, so we’ll wait and see more as the season goes on.  However, if we see more efforts out of this team that we saw this weekend, this Husker fan will be very satisfied, regardless of wins and losses.


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