Steven M. Sipple: Bolt takes page out of Van Horn’s book to help push Huskers to next level | Column

It was a crushing defeat for Nebraska, albeit one that also elicited hope. 

One could say it felt devastating at the time because NU was that close to a mammoth, breakthrough win. 

But they say time heals, right? Well, sometimes time even heals to the point where a crushing loss actually becomes a useful motivational tool.  

Don’t look now, but Nebraska baseball coach Will Bolt has taken a page out of mentor Dave Van Horn’s motivational guide. Perfect.

Remember what happened early last June? Arkansas scored four runs with two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning, allowing the top-ranked Razorbacks to defeat Nebraska 6-2 in a winner-take-all contest of the NCAA Fayetteville Regional. 

It was high-level sports theater, with one of the main storylines being Bolt versus Van Horn, the former Nebraska coach who left Lincoln following the 2002 season to take over his alma mater’s program. 

Bolt makes darned sure his current players remember that regional loss. 

“Well, we put a picture of the scoreboard on our practice plan every day to remind them, ‘Don’t forget, that’s how close you were,'” the third-year Husker coach said last week. “I’m taking a page from Van Horn’s book from back in the day.” 

Remember what happened in early June of 2000? Nebraska’s bid to earn its first College World Series appearance in school history fell one game short, as it lost to Stanford 5-3 in the deciding game of a super regional in Palo Alto, California. 

The next season, Van Horn made sure his players always had that day in Sunken Diamond Stadium somewhere in their cranium.  

“The coaches put a picture of the Stanford dogpile (in our locker room),” Bolt recalls. “It was a reminder.” 

A stark reminder. A motivational method. It worked well, too, as Nebraska broke through in 2001 with two super regional wins against Rice in Lincoln. The surging Huskers finally had earned a trip to the CWS in Omaha. It seemed surreal at the time. 

“I still remember taking that picture down and tearing it up,” said Bolt, a four-year starter and team captain on Nebraska’s 2001 and 2002 CWS teams. “When we won (against Rice), we took the next step.” 

Bolt this season will try to push Nebraska to its “next step” as a program — that is, playing host to a regional, and winning it. That’s the goal, he says. The Huskers in 2021 ran away with the Big Ten championship before pushing Arkansas to the brink in Fayetteville. NU, 34-14 last season, now finds itself ranked between No. 20 and 31 in preseason polls, the first time since 2007 that the Huskers have been in preseason rankings. 

Bolt expresses confidence in his team. Thing is, Bolt always comes across as confident. It’s his nature, so he can be a challenge to read. He does, however, seem especially confident in the power and athleticism throughout the batting order. 

“At first glance, I don’t know that this team is going to be as small-ball oriented as we’ve seen the first couple years we’ve been here,” he said. “That’s not to say it won’t be a weapon for us. But I think there may be more guys in the lineup who can get you an extra-base hit, and there’s some athleticism there, too.”

Bottom line, “I think there’s strength up and down the lineup, so it may lead to maybe swinging away a little bit more at times than we’ve seen.”

Meanwhile, Bolt clearly likes having seniors Kyle Perry and Shay Schanaman as two of his top starting pitchers entering the season. 

We’ll learn plenty about Nebraska this weekend when it opens the season against Sam Houston in Huntsville, Texas. 

You know what? Bolt already seems to have a pretty good feel for his group. 

“Just last Friday, we had an amazing practice,” he said. “The way my practices are, we try to make them mess up, so they have to be mentally tough. It was a day when we tried to get them ‘sped up’ — put pressure on them — and they just weren’t having any of it. They were on top of it. On top of everything. That’s the mindset we have to have.”

Lest his players become overly confident at any point this season, Bolt can point to what happened last June against Arkansas. 

Yes, sir, that scoreboard in Fayetteville will be right there on the daily practice plan. 

“I think about that game every day,” said Nebraska left-handed reliever Jake Bunz of Elkhorn, who surrendered a three-run home run in the disastrous eighth inning. “I wake up every day with that goal of just going out there and being better, so when that scenario comes up this year, I can dominate it.” 

That’s exactly what Bolt wants to hear. 

“As crushing as it was in the moment, I think that’s something that fuels you the entire year during the next year,” the coach said. “You don’t want to feel that way again.”