Stars Of The Game And Extra Notes As Huskers Win Program’s First-ever Big Ten Tournament Championship

For the first time in its 13-year history in the Big Ten, a dogpile commenced in Omaha: Nebraska baseball defeated Penn State, 2-1, on Sunday to capture the program’s first-ever Big Ten Tournament championship at Charles Schwab Field.

The No. 2 seed Huskers (39-20) won that title on the home field of their in-state rival, Creighton, after an epic pitcher’s duel against the No. 8 seed Nittany Lions (29-24)* and an even more unthinkable run throughout the rest of the tournament.

Nebraska was handed a 7-inning mercy-rule loss (15-2) by No. 7 seed Ohio State in the first round on Tuesday night. Then, the Huskers buckled down to rattle off five consecutive victories for a wild run to capture the title and secure an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.

That was punctuated by ending the Nittany Lions’ end-of-season Cinderella run. Penn State needed a three-game road sweep at Maryland in the final series of the regular season just to qualify as the 8th seed. Then, PSU upset regular-season outright champion and tournament No. 1 seed Illinois and beat No. 4 seed Michigan twice to reach Sunday’s title bout (including a 7-6 win in 10 innings over the Wolverines on Saturday).

The Nittany Lions looked poised to pull off an incredible run to an NCAA Tournament bid on Sunday as they took a 1-0 lead over Nebraska in the first inning.

However, behind an electric crowd at the Chuck (official attendance: 13,300) that almost certainly would have been louder if not for the bump in start time (from 2 p.m. to 10 a.m.) the Huskers silenced Penn State’s run behind a handful of standout performances.

Let’s get to the stars of today’s tournament title game and some extra notes on the Huskers from the B1G tourney: