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baseball Edit

Huskers hang on to take series from Northwestern

Ryan Boldt hit his third double of the series Saturday.
Ryan Boldt hit his third double of the series Saturday.
Tyler Krecklow

The collective blood pressure of the Haymarket Park faithful climbed significantly in the final stages of Saturday's contest with Northwestern. After looking like they would cruise to a relatively easy win for much of the afternoon, the Huskers made things interesting late.

The Wildcats hit three home runs, the final of which was a three-run blast in the eighth to bring the score to 8-7. But the Huskers held on, leaning on their two top relievers to close the door and improving to 22-9 on the season.

"That's the next step for the team - yeah, it's great to win and all, but finish it off and leave no doubt," Darin Erstad said. "I felt a little lull there in the dugout, just 'Oh, it's OK,' and obviously you can't have that."

Nebraska's offense consistently hounded Northwestern's hurlers, scoring in four of the first six innings to build an 8-2 lead. Matt Hopfner hit a wind-aided two-run homer off Reece Eddins in the seventh, but the lead still seemed quite safe.

That security vanished in the eighth. Derek Burkamper appeared to escape the inning unscathed when Hopfner grounded to Steven Reveles at shortstop with two outs. But the senior mishandled the ball, and Joe Hoscheit lifted a three-run shot over the left field ball a few pitches later.

Nebraska dodged a full-fledged collapse as Jeff Chesnut closed out the eighth with a swinging strikeout and Chad Luensmann sent the Wildcats down in order in the ninth to earn his second save in as many days.

"As soon as that ball gets out, it's like, 'Hey, I better get ready for the ninth inning if we don't score two or three runs,'" Luensmann said. "So immediately I started getting stretched out, do some band work and start preparing mentally to have that ninth inning."

Ryan Boldt paced the offense with three hits and a pair of RBIs. Reveles and Scott Schreiber each added two hits and two RBIs.

But Nebraska's pitching remained a major issue as the Huskers allowed 14 hits to one of the conference's worst offenses. Jake McSteen was rocky in his four innings, surrendering two runs on six hits. Eddins wasn't much better and Burkamper was rocked, forcing Erstad to turn to his top two relievers to finish the game after each pitched Friday.

"I never let my guard down, especially in college baseball," Erstad said. "Who knows what's going to happen? The wind is blowing out to left and they've got a lot of power from the right side. We just fell into a little lull. We had a chance to get a couple more runs. We didn't get it done, and credit to them that they kept attacking. We were throwing balls thigh high and they were crushing balls a lot higher than thigh high.

"I guess we found a way, so you have to be happy about that."

The Huskers will try to sweep the series Sunday at 1:05 p.m.

Saturday standout

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Outfielder Ryan Boldt: He's gotten surprisingly little attention, but Boldt is having a spectacular season, and he's turned his game to another level this series. The junior went 3-for-5 with two runs and two RBIs and stole a pair of bases. Boldt is now 5-for-9 with three doubles this series.

Around the horn

***Luensmann is now 7-for-7 in save opportunities this year.

***Jake Placzek walked twice, his 11th game with multiple walks this season. He's been on a particular tear lately, walking 22 times in the last 11 contests.

***Reveles' eighth-inning bobble was team-leading ninth error.

***The attendance was 3,942.

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