Box Score LINCOLN, Neb. – The Omaha baseball team dropped the second game of its season series with No. 23 Nebraska on Wednesday night, falling 8-6 at Haymarket Park. With the loss, the Mavericks drop to 16-17 on the season, while the Huskers improve to 28-11.
Jake Meyers (3-1) earned the win for Nebraska, throwing 3.0 innings of relief and allowing five runs (four earned) on seven hits and a walk. The loss went to senior right-hander
Tyler Hamer (1-3), who threw the final inning and gave up two runs on three hits. Nate Fisher picked up his first save of the year, allowing one hit in one inning of work.
Junior
Cole Gruber finished 3-for-4 to lead the Mavericks, scoring once and drawing a walk. The Papillion-LaVista product entered the night with a .434 batting average, which ranked second nationally, and raised his mark to .447. Junior
Collin Leif joined Gruber with a multi-hit effort, going 2-for-4 with a run scored.
Nebraska was led by Austin Darby's perfect 5-for-5 night at the plate, as he scored once and drove in two more runs. Taylor Fish was 3-for-3 with two RBI, while Blake Headley went 3-for-4 with two runs and two RBI. Jake Schleppenbach rounded out the multi-hit performances for NU, going 2-for-5 with a run scored and another driven in.
Both teams were held scoreless until the bottom of the third inning. The Huskers threatened in the bottom of the second with runners on the corners and no outs, but Scott Schreiber flew out to center, and lead runner Ben Miller was gunned down at the plate with a one-hop throw from junior
Alex Schultz for the double play.
In the third, Nebraska plated three runs on four hits. Jake Placzek put a one-out double down the left field line and scored on an RBI single to center by Schleppenbach. Headley then doubled down the right field line, and Schleppenbach scored on a wild pitch in the next at-bat. Darby followed up with an RBI double to right that drove in Headley, giving the Huskers a 3-0 lead.
Omaha cut the score to 3-1 in the sixth. Gruber drew a leadoff walk, moved into scoring position on a single by junior
Clayton Taylor and scored on an error as redshirt freshman
Ryan Cate reached on a fielder's choice.
The Huskers, however, tacked on three more runs in the bottom of the third. Darby opened with a double to right center, Schreiber walked and Christian Cox was hit by a pitch to load the bases no outs. Fish delivered a two-run single to left that scored Schreiber and Darby, making it 5-1. Headley later worked a two-out walk with the bases loaded to drive in Cox, extending Nebraska's lead to 6-1.
UNO struck back in the seventh with four runs on five hits and an error. Senior
Daniel Jewett walked and senior
Justin Threlkeld singled through the left side to put two runners on. Leif then laid down a bunt single, and Jewett scored on a throwing error on the play. Schultz added a single of his own to drive in Threlkeld, which pulled the Mavericks within three at 6-3. UNO loaded the bases with a bunt single by Gruber, and Taylor followed by reaching on a fielder's choice, which allowed Leif to cross. Cate added an RBI single up the middle to drive in Schultz, and Omaha found itself trailing 6-5.
The Mavericks' rally finally came to a head in the top of the eighth, when Jewett scored on a fielding error to tie the game at 6-6.
Nebraska then broke through the tie in the bottom half of the inning. Headley dropped a one-out single into short left to score Ryan Boldt, which gave NU the lead, 7-6. The Huskers tallied once more on Darby's fifth hit of the night, an RBI single through the right side that drove in Headley for an 8-6 advantage. NU maintained its lead through the top half of the ninth, working around a Taylor single with a popup and a groundout into a double play, and Nebraska held on for the 8-6 win.
Omaha travels to South Dakota State for a three-game league series this weekend, April 17-19, in Brookings, S.D. Friday's game is set for a 3 p.m. first pitch, followed by 1 p.m. start times on Saturday and Sunday. Links to live stats will be available on OMavs.com.
