Huskers stay flat and drop regional opener to Oklahoma State

The Nebraska baseball team’s late May struggles continued in the opening round of the NCAA Baseball regionals on Friday.

The Huskers (37-21) had no answer for Oklahoma State’s (37-20) ace pitcher Thomas Hatch, as he struck out 10 batter in 7 scoreless innings of work in the Cowboys 6-0 victory at Clemson.

Hatch was the Big 12 pitcher of the year, and even when Nebraska threatened he was able to get himself out of out of tough situations.

Meanwhile, NU got one of their worst outings all season from freshman pitcher Matt Waldron. It started in the first inning when OSU loaded the bases with nobody out and jumped up 2-0.

“I’m actually really proud of the way he minimized that inning,” head coach Darin Erstad said of Waldron's first inning on the Husker Sports Network. “He had the leadoff hitter 0-2 and gave up a base hit and then had a guy 0-2 that was trying to bunt and then we hit him. Then he was first and second and a guy hits a jam shot over the shortstop and the bases are loaded with nobody out and I’m like ‘here we go.’ Then they get a base hit and it’s 1-0 and we haven’t even gotten an out yet. To limit that that to 2 runs was huge. For what it could’ve been, I thought it could’ve been a lot worse."

They continued to put pressure on Waldron in the third inning, when Oklahoma State’s Conor Costello hit a two-run homer to put the Cowboys up 4-0. It was one of three hits on the day for Costello, as he led the OSU offense with 3 RBI.

The final line on Waldron (7-3) was 5 runs off 8 hits in just 3.2 innings. It was his shortest outing since the first weekend of the season when he went just 1.2 innings against College of Charleston. It was the most hits Waldron has allowed since giving up 10 to Michigan State back on May 8.

Nebraska’s one big chance to get back in the game was in the bottom of the 6th inning. NU loaded the bases with just one out, but Hatch was able to strike out NU’s Jesse Wilkening and Jake Placzek to get out of the inning.

"That was our big moment," Erstad said. "We needed to get something going there and we weren’t able to.”

With the loss, the Huskers will play in the losers bracket game on Saturday at 11 am.

“We just have to keep swinging,” Erstad said. “We just took too many first pitches. We wanted to be aggressive. Just too many times with runners in scoring position we let that first pitch go by. Against a guy of (Hatch’s) caliber, once you lose count leverage the odds of you squaring up on a ball are going to be very slim. I wish we would’ve been a little bit more aggressive. We talked about that and it didn’t happen, we just have to bounce back tomorrow.”

***First basemen Scott Schreiber was back in the line-up on Friday, but was lifted from the game after the 6th inning, as he continues to suffer from a lower abdominal injury. Even playing hurt though, Schreiber was able to have two hits.

"He's fine, he just can't run," Erstad said of Schreiber. "We're in that inning and the bases are loaded with one out and if we are going to get back into it we are going to have to be able to score that guy. He feels OK swinging the bat, but running he doesn't hurt too bad, he just can't move. In that situation we had to make sure he could get it. We'll see where he's at tomorrow. I'm sure he'll be sore, but we'll have to see where he's at."

***The other bright spot for Nebraska's offense was the play of Jake Meyers. The sophomore reached based three times with two singles and one hit by pitch.

***In a long relief effort of 3.1 innings, Garrett King looked impressive striking out six of the 16 batters he faced.

"He did a very nice job, and that's nice to see as you start to build for the future," Erstad said of King's relief innings.