Let’s Play (at least) Two (more games)

Nebraska baseball keeps its season alive with its second straight Big Ten Tournament title, while softball falls a couple of inches long, and maybe just two runs short, of the WCWS.

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Nebraska baseball’s mission in Omaha was simple enough . . . to understand. Once you grasped the odd Big Ten Tournament format, you realized all the eighth-seeded Huskers needed to do to keep their postseason hopes alive was win four consecutive elimination games. Yes, this was technically the debut of pool play in Omaha, but practically all but the top four seeds were in the loser’s bracket from the start.

Simple to understand, however, doesn’t equal easy to execute.

Nebraska beat Michigan State—a lower-seeded team, but one throwing Big Ten Pitcher of the Year Joseph Dzierwa—to open things Tuesday, then took down top-seed Oregon Saturday morning (following a postponement Friday night). The Huskers beat another surprise semifinalist, 9-seed Penn State, in their second game of the day to set up a championship game against 2-seed UCLA Sunday.

More than 15,000 fans turned out (of course) to watch Nebraska make surprisingly easy work of the 13th-ranked Bruins. Sophomore Ty Horn pitched eight scoreless innings, a career-high in innings pitched, and the Huskers had the upper hand after plating three in the top of the second. Nebraska added two two-out runs an inning later on a home run from Devin Nunez for the 5-0 win and Nebraska’s second consecutive Big Ten Tournament title.

The team most would’ve picked to be an NCAA Tournament team in the preseason, didn’t look like one for much of the actual season. But it’s there now thanks to four straight wins in Omaha (not to mention eight of its last 10 in Big Ten play).

With the auto-bid in hand, the Huskers will find out their Tournament destination today.¹ The NCAA Baseball Championship Selection Show is live on ESPN2 at 11 a.m. CT.

Rolled and tumbled the whole night through

Over 21 innings of softball in Knoxville this weekend, Nebraska outscored Tennessee, 7-6. Problem was, this was a best-of-three season, not one three-day game. The Huskers seized momentum in Friday’s opener with a 5-2 win, only to fall 3-2 Saturday and 1-0 Sunday. Their season ended a run ahead in the Super Regional but two runs short of a trip to the Women’s College World Series.

And that’s how close the series felt.

I know I’m getting older wiser because every time I watch two good teams play well, no matter the outcome, I appreciate it a little more than the last time. Sure, it was a Super Regional, so the expectation was good teams and well-played games, but refer to, oh, about 80% of the College Football Playoff games ever played to be reminded that earned excellence is no guarantee of competitive games.

Nebraska-Tennessee was as good as advertised, which is becoming the thing I want most from sports.

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Nebraska’s Jordy Bahl and Tennessee’s Karlyn Pickens, two of the 10 finalists² for USA Softball’s Collegiate Player of the Year, each took to the circle Sunday, same as in the previous two games. Both were as good³ as expected, same as the previous two games, but somebody has to win. Vols second baseman Ella Dodge hit a drive to right-center in the bottom of the first—she’d homered off Bahl on Saturday—that, in real time, appeared to hit the top of the wall, bounce back into the field of play, where Nebraska relayed a throw to third to retire Dodge.

Upon review, where it was still somewhat tough to discern, it appeared the ball still hit the top of the wall, bounced toward the outfield stands where it hit a railing and then back into the field of play. The out call was changed to a home run and that was all Tennessee needed as Pickens struck out 10 and allowed just two hits.

Had the wind been blowing a bit in the right direction in east Tennessee yesterday, if the launch angle had been a fraction different, maybe I’m writing something different right now. But, hey, I got to watch great softball for three days.

Imagine being a player who put in all the work, did as much as or more than you thought you could do, and you have to know that on the pitch that provided the only run Sunday any one of maybe 20 things could’ve been a little different and resulted in a different outcome. In many alternate universes things are different, but in the only one we know Nebraska was one run up in the Super Regional, two runs away from the World Series.

Sports are great that way, even in a loss.

1. Though we already know the Huskers will be heading to one of these 16 Regional sites.

2. That list was whittled to three last week with Bahl still in contention.

3. This was also a great uniform matchup with the Huskers in their red with white pinstripes and the Vols sporting a light blue ensemble. If you’ve ever wondered why the “Lady Vols” often incorporate this blue but never bothered to look it up (which was me prior to yesterday), here’s the official explanation on UT’s library site (aka Volopedia): “In 1968, when Joan Cronan became head Lady Vols basketball coach at 23 years old, the Lady Vols did not have any uniforms—they were playing in T-shirts and shorts. Cronan set about to change that. Only a few companies made women’s basketball uniforms, and none offered an orange uniform. She found some uniforms with orange lettering, which was fine for road games, but rules prohibited home teams from wearing white. Cronan had to decide what color the home-game uniforms would be. She liked Carolina (Columbia) Blue. It was available, and it went well with orange lettering. In a few years, there was soon no problem with getting orange uniforms, but a ‘touch of Columbia blue’ has remained.”

Pretty good reason to keep the blue, in my opinion. And Coach Cronan was right, it does look good with orange.