Perry, Schanaman to lead the way as Husker baseball reveals starting rotation for opening weekend | Baseball

Senior left-hander Kyle Perry will get the ball Friday when the Nebraska baseball team opens its season at Sam Houston State.

Husker coach Will Bolt revealed his team’s revamped rotation Tuesday as NU begins the process to back up last season’s run to the regional finals while also replacing several key pieces from that roster. After Perry, Nebraska will go with Shay Schanaman, Dawson McCarville, and Braxton Bragg.

“I think from Pitch 1 they’re going to set the tone for that game,” NU reliever Jake Bunz said. “(Opposing teams) know we’re going to come at them and compete, so it kind of sets the tone for the bullpen from then on. They come out of the game, we go in and do the same.”

Perry made four starts late last season as he rehabbed from Tommy John surgery. The Millard South product was 2-0 with a 3.48 ERA, and got the start in Nebraska’s win over Arkansas at the Fayetteville regional.

After Perry throws on Friday, right-hander Shay Schanaman will take the ball in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader. The Grand Island native spent most of last season as NU’s Sunday starter. He went 5-2 with a 5.08 ERA, and was second on the team with 72 strikeouts in 67 innings pitched.

Bolt said Perry and Schanaman, both named team captains earlier this year, are “1A and 1B” at the top of Nebraska’s rotation.

“Really for us, it came down to a potential matchup problem, that maybe having a left-handed pitcher on Friday could create another team maybe thinking about changing their lineup,” Bolt said. “A lefty maybe tends to shut down the running game at times; we saw that with (Cade) Povich last year on Fridays.

“Really, we couldn’t go wrong either way, but we feel excited about the four guys that we have leading the way this weekend.”

Dawson McCarville, a fifth-year senior right-hander who transferred to Nebraska from Grand Canyon University, will start the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader. 

After a slow start last season, the 6-foot-3, 215-pound McCarville allowed just 10 earned runs over his final 11 appearances. He finished the year with a 5-3 record and a 3.58 ERA.

“I think he’s settled in this spring, understanding what the expectation is of him — come in and be a guy that could be at the front of games for us,” Bolt said. “Very sharp, very competitive, all the things you would hope to see in a fifth-year guy.”

Junior righty Braxton Bragg will start in Sunday’s season finale. Bolt said Bragg, in his third year as a Husker has been the team’s most consistent performer on the mound going back to fall ball.

It was a strong bounce-back for Bragg, who scuffled late last season in giving up 10 earned runs over his final 5⅔ innings out of the NU bullpen.

Bragg then had a strong summer as a starting pitcher in the Coastal Plain League, where he went 3-1 with a 2.66 ERA and 24 strikeouts against three walks, and carried that momentum with him into the fall.

“He’s been very, very consistent, very mentally tough, knows who he is now, he’s a third-year guy,” Bolt said. “And I think he certainly deserved a shot on the first weekend from what he’s shown us over the course of the last six months.”