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baseball Edit

Waldron tosses shutout as Huskers top Penn State 6-0

Ben Miller led the Huskers with three hits on the day.
Ben Miller led the Huskers with three hits on the day.

Saturday's Husker baseball game against Penn State was pretty much a must-win as NU is trying to position themselves for an at large NCAA Regional bid and guarantee a spot in Omaha for the upcoming B1G tourney.

Starting pitcher Matt Waldron gave the Huskers the performance they needed by throwing a complete game four-hit shutout.

"We wanted him to control his breaking ball and Matt was really doing that," Coach Darin Erstad said. "What I really saw, compared to his start against Michigan State where he had a couple two strike 0-2 counts and he wasn't able to keep his breaking ball down and get swings and misses, where [today] he buried a couple really nice.

"Now, unfortunately, they squirted away from Jesse (Wilkening) and they got on base, but I saw him executing in individual counts. He started getting that breaking ball working for strike one pretty much at will, and it was on. That's because he had his changeup going too."

Nebraska got off to a fast start by scoring two runs in the first inning, highlighted by a Jake Meyers double and Ben Miller's two RBI single. NU next scored in the fourth inning when Ben Miller doubled and scored on Jesse Wilkening's solid single to left.

The Huskers tacked on two more runs in the sixth when Miller led off with a sharp single and Luis Alvarado walked with two outs. Jake Schleppenbach drove both runners in with a single to center.

"When you look at batting average against for their pitcher, both righties and lefties are hitting .230 against him, so it's not going to be easy to come by," Erstad said. "So we have to take advantage of whatever opportunities we have.

"We got a hit by a pitch, Jake got a breaking ball he hit down the line, and Ben did a great job of hitting the ball in the six-hole to get us going. When you have those opportunities, you need to make the most of them. So I would say, yeah, we were very opportunistic today."

Waldron was sharp all day as he scattered four hits over nine innings, retiring Penn State in order in five of those innings.

"When you're throwing three pitches for strikes, it was fun to watch," Coach Erstad said of Waldron's day on the mound. "I'm not really sure he had much stress, so when that's the case, you just sort of play it by ear. But his pitch count was low enough that I didn't think it was a concern.

"The dealing was still there and the stuff was still there, and heck, it was like 50 pitches less than he threw in high school when he was at Westside. So he was just getting warmed up."

Nebraska added an insurance run in the bottom of the seventh when Ryan Boldt walked to start off the frame, then stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error by the Nittany Lions' catcher. Jake Placzek drove Boldt in on a sacrifice fly.

The Huskers will play the series deciding Game 3 against Penn State Sunday at 11:35 AM CT with Jake Meyers slated to be the starting pitcher for NU.

"The thing I like is that I think yesterday we had 15 called strikes looking on first pitches, and a couple of those were late when I was having them taking, but today we only had five," Erstad stated. "So we were much more aggressive. Now, on the flip side, we were not finishing some of our bats.

"I think we were called looking on fastballs five times on strikes in the zone and that can't happen. So, one thing gets a little better and one thing doesn't get better. We have to put this together and we're very capable of doing that. But that's the next step and we're going to need that tomorrow."

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