One was a come-from-behind thriller, the other was a mercy-rule thrashing, but both games of Saturday’s doubleheader were wins for the red-hot No. 24 Nebraska baseball over Penn State Saturday at Hawks Field. The Cornhuskers (25-6, 10-1 Big Ten) scored five unanswered runs late in game one to beat the Nittany Lions, 8-7, before NU lit up PSU 13-1, in a seven-inning, mercy-rule victory.
In game one, Penn State bolted out to a 7-3 lead through 3.5 innings before Nebraska began to rally. A Mac Moyer sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fourth cut the Lions’ lead to 7-4. A Drew Grego RBI single in the fifth pulled the Huskers to within 7-5. In the sixth, a wild pitch and an error scored two runs to tie the game at seven. Then in the bottom of the sixth, Rhett Stokes drove a single to right to score Grego and give Nebraska the lead, capping a three-hit game for Stokes.
Tucker Timmermann (2-0) came out of the bullpen and threw four shutout innnings, allowing one hit while striking out two. J’Shawn Unger threw two no-hit innings to earn his fifth save of the season.
Nebraska’s offense kept churning in game two, piling up five runs in the first, then two in the second and one in the third to build an 8-1 lead through three innings. The Huskers buried PSU with three in the fourth and two in the fifth, bringing the mercy rule into effect.
While the Nebraska bats were rolling, Carson Jasa (6-1) locked down the Nittany Lions, allowing just four hits and one run while striking out 11 in seven innings. Jett Buck was 2-for-4 with six RBI and a home run.