Huskers Avoid Sweep, Hold Off Northwestern to Win 6-4

The Nebraska baseball team was able to salvage something from their series against Northwestern, with a 6-4 win over the Wildcats. After a pair of demoralizing defeats that saw Nebraska’s bats go quiet in the first two games of the series, Nebraska were able to exorcise those demons Monday afternoon in Evanston, Illinois.

The Huskers began the game with a bang, as Aaron Palensky hit a leadoff solo shot to right center to take a 1-0 lead.

Nebraska’s bats would go quiet though until the top of the fifth, until Angelo Altavilla plated a run on a double in the inning to go up 2-0 with two outs. Following Altavilla’s at bat, the Huskers were able to load up the bases once Cam Chick reached on a bunt single, but Nebraska failed to take advantage, stranding all three base runners to end the inning.

In the bottom half of the frame, Northwestern halved the Husker’s lead with a homerun. Nebraska though, responded strongly in the sixth, posting two runs on four hits to go up 4-1.

The Huskers put across one more in the seventh after Altavilla was able to put the ball in play to bring in Mojo Hagge for his third RBI of the day. Then in the eighth, the Huskers appeared to have the game squared away after Chick stole two bases and scored on a throwing error to put Nebraska up 6-1.

However, the Wildcats came storming back in the bottom half of the eighth, hitting a two RBI single to cut the lead in half again, 6-3. Then in the ninth, Northwestern frustrated the Husker’s freshman reliever Colby Gomes, who was called upon to close things out for the Big Red.

Gomes plunked the leadoff batter, gave up a double and then surrendered a run on a sacrifice fly to narrow the margin down to 6-4. But Gomes settled down and got the next batter to fly out and the final batter to strike out and secure a much needed victory for the Huskers.

Although his squad was far from perfect, NU head coach Darin Erstad was pleased his team was able to snap out of their funk. “Bottom line, we’ve been playing awful baseball,” Erstad said. “We just had to go out there have fun and take it anyway it comes.”

Nebraska had 12 hits Monday afternoon. On Sunday, they only had 3. Also, Nebraska has now equaled their win total from last season, with win number 24 in 2019.

It wasn’t just the offense who deserves credit for the victory. The winning pitcher, Reece Eddins, played a large part in the win. In six innings pitched, the fifth year senior allowed one run on five hits. He also struck out six and walked one batter. He’s now 5-2 on the year.

“He’s obviously put a ton of work in because he’s still throwing 90, 92, late in his outing,” Erstad said. “It’s one of those things where he’s got lots of experience and made a couple of huge pitches. We needed that today.”

Nebraska’s next challenge will be to take on Arizona State for a three game series this weekend in Lincoln at Haymarket Park. Coverage of all of those games can be found on KLIN.

(Photo – Kenny Larabee)