Host a regional? Yeah, that's what Nebraska wants to do in 2025
Nebraska Baseball hasn't hosted a regional since 2008. The No. 24 Huskers hope to change that in 2025.
With temperatures in the low 40s last Friday, the No. 24 Nebraska baseball team took its first practice of the 2025 season outside. It may have been a bit chilly — you can blame the wind — but it was warm enough to allow the Huskers a full seven-inning scrimmage.
Even better, Nebraska was able to do just that at the new Sandhills Global Youth Complex, a 38-acre site with eight all-turf fields located near 1st and Cornhusker Highway along I-180.
The complex — which will be home to local youth baseball and softball teams, Nebraska Wesleyan’s baseball and softball teams, as well as providing a practice facility for Nebraska baseball — isn’t quite complete, but that was no problem for the Huskers. As far as coach Will Bolt is concerned, it’s simply the fact that Nebraska will have its own home base for outdoor practices.
"We're not going to play on a high school field (anymore), we're going to play on our field,” Bolt said. “I'm thankful to our administration, across three different administrations that have stuck with the project and made it happen. We're excited to get out there."
And so Nebraska did just that Friday, despite the chill in the air and the finishing touches yet to be complete.
“But just to be able to get out and move around and see the ball fly, it's going to be very, very beneficial to us,” Bolt continued.
Nebraska will start its season 18 days from now on Feb. 14 as part of the MLB Desert Invitational in Phoenix, Arizona. The Huskers open the weekend facing UC Irvine on Friday, followed by No. 16 Vanderbilt on Saturday and San Diego State on Sunday. That weekend kicks off an aggressive schedule for Nebraska too, with the Huskers facing nonconference foes like Vandy, LSU and Kansas State before Big Ten play even begins. There’s the addition of UCLA and USC this season too, which bolster the Big Ten baseball lineup right away.
It’s not going to be an easy stretch to repeat as Big Ten tournament champions, but Nebraska is up to the challenge.
“The message with our group is we are challenging them for a reason,” Bolt said about the schedule. “We think they can handle it. We got a lot of returning players, a lot of older guys … Those guys have seen a lot, have logged a lot of college innings and that's what it takes to navigate this.”
Bolt isn’t joking around about the returning players. Nearly every player returns from the 2024 starting lineup, which means the overall experience as a team is substantial. Even in replacing starting catcher Josh Caron, the Huskers welcomed senior Hogan Helligso from Creighton. He brings 126 games of college baseball experience with him.
The pitching staff is about as experienced as one can hope for too, with Drew Christo, Will Walsh and Mason McConnaughey all returning.1 McConnaughey was named a preseason All-American by D1Baseball after finishing the 2024 season with a 3.45 ERA in 17 appearances, including 11 starts.
“It’s a privilege having the experiences we went through last year,” McConnaughey said. “We were in a lot of situations last year, whether it was down in the ninth, up big or backs against the wall. Those will all help us throughout this season.
“We have a lot of great leaders on the team that bring different attributes. We’ve got vocal leaders, guys who lead by example. It's made the learning curve for the younger guys a lot easier and will help us down the road.”
That experience is a major positive for Bolt — as it would be for any coach and team – but it’s also a bit of a different scenario for the head coach. In his time at Nebraska, he’s often had to reset more than half of his roster for various reasons. Heading into the 2025 season, he returns 23 players and welcomes 17 newcomers. Depending on Nebraska’s starting lineup, there could be more than 24 years of college experience on the field at any given time.
”You've got older rosters and there's more players available now than there ever have been for every sport across the country,” Bolt said. “I haven't really changed the way that we've coached these guys because they've been in the fire before and they've seen that it can work if you have a certain level of intensity. It makes it a little bit easier for those guys. They can say, ‘Hey, this works,’ because we've done it before.
“I think it's just kind of hopefully (at) the point that we're at in our program as well (where we’re) building it and getting to a point where the expectations are high and you welcome those challenges. You don't back down from them and I'm looking forward to seeing this team do that.”
With those high expectations also means the returners aren’t guaranteed a thing. Nebraska brought in players like outfielder Robby Bolin, corner outfielder Max Buettenback and South Dakota State transfer Cael Frost, who was also the Summit League Player of the Year, to challenge those veterans.
“It’s the fine line between, ‘These are our guys who we’re going to roll with,’ and knowing they can be replaced in the lineup if they’re not performing,” Bolt said. “They’re staying on their toes but they’re confident too. If you’re hitting, you’re going to be in the lineup and we’re not going to lose a lot defensively.”
In the end, the goal always remains the same for Bolt: win a national title. He wants for his team what he experienced at Nebraska, and a trip to the College World Series would be a great one to check off the list.
But before that, the Huskers have one specific goal: to be one of 16 regional hosts. It’s a goal Nebraska hasn’t achieved since 2008, and it’s one that makes or breaks through a tough schedule.
"It comes down to five games, and that's the difference between getting to a regional, staying at home, just getting to a regional or hosting one," Bolt said. "What you do in those days in between is ultra important.”
That’s why Nebraska was outside on Friday, even if the wind made it a little questionable temperature-wise at times. There’s nothing better than live experience, and Nebraska was happy to get it on a late January day.
Other news and notes:
>> If you’re waiting to hear about captains, you’ll be waiting awhile. Bolt said Nebraska does not plan to name captains to start the season — just like 2024 — and instead let leaders emerge as things get going.
“Those guys emerged and I think you kind of saw it particularly by the end of the season,” Bolt said. “Our leaders are the guys that took some of the biggest swings at the end of the year.”
>> Bolt was clear that coach Rob Childress' work with the pitching staff has brought consistency, habit-forming drills and an emphasis on throwing strikes. As a result, several young arms are showing progress, focusing on routines and process-oriented development.
Big Ten Pitcher of the Year Brett Sears is the only one not returning, but he leaves behind a group that led the conference in earned-run average and placed among the nation’s best in strikeout-to-walk ratio.