Huskers Begin Busy Week with Creighton and Iowa

Record (25-3, 5-1 Big 12) ? National Rankings: 5 (CB) ? 27 (BA) ? 10 (Sports Weekly) ? 8 (NCBWA)

Day Date Opp. Rank Opponent (Record) Location Time
Tues. April 5 vs. Creighton (22-7) Omaha, Neb. (Rosenblatt) 6:30 p.m.
Wed. April 6 Iowa (6-13) Hawks Field 6:05 p.m.
Fri. April 8 5/1/1 Texas (26-5, 4-4 Big 12) Hawks Field 6:30 p.m.
Sat. April 9 5/1/1 Texas Hawks Field 1 p.m.
Sun. April 10 5/1/1 Texas Hawks Field 1:30 p.m.

Polls are listed in the following order: Collegiate Baseball/Baseball America/Sports Weekly

Pitching Probables
Tues. NU - Phil Shirek, Sr., RHP (3-0, 1.99 ERA) vs. CU - Teddy Ogilvie, So., RHP (1-1, 3.15 ERA)
Wed. NU - TBA vs. Iowa - TBA

Media Information
Tickets: $8 (sold out for Texas series), $6 (adult GA), $4 (children and seniors GA); FREE (UNL students w/valid ID)
Radio: Pinnacle Sports Network (all 5 games)
TV: Tues. (Nebraska Educational Television- Ch. 12 in Lincoln); Wed. (Nebraska Educational Television - Ch. 12 in Lincoln/CSTV - Ch. 305 on Time Warner Cable); Fri. (ESPNU - Ch. 609 on DirecTV); Sat.-Sun. (ESPN)
Live Stats: Huskers.com
Internet Video Streaming: Tuesday and Wednesday only (HuskersNside)

Huskers Begin Busy Week with Creighton and Iowa
Lincoln -- The Nebraska baseball team embarks on one of its biggest weeks of the season, playing five games in a six-day span beginning Tuesday evening.

The Huskers (25-3 overall and 5-1 in the Big 12) begin the week by making the 55-mile drive from Lincoln to Omaha’s Rosenblatt Stadium for a contest against in-state rival Creighton. The game will be carried on the Pinnacle Sports Network, including KLIN 1400 AM (Lincoln), KFAB 1110 AM (Lincoln) and KRVN 880 AM (Lexington).

Tickets for the matchup are available at Rosenblatt Stadium on Tuesday afternoon, as a large walk up crowd is expected. The game, the first of two contests in Omaha this season (also May 10) has drawn crowds in excess of 10,000 in each of the past five seasons.

Behind Johnny Dorn’s near no-hitter, the Huskers snapped the Bluejays’ 12-game win streak with a 10-2 victory in the teams’ first matchup on March 29. The first meeting drew a Hawks Field regular-season record crowd of 7,278, and Tuesday’s crowd is expected to easily top that mark.

Huskers vs. Creighton at Rosenblatt
Year Score Attendance
1999 Nebraska 10, Creighton 9 6,735
2000 Nebraska 10, Creighton 2 15,436
2001 Nebraska 8, Creighton 4 13,862
2002 Nebraska 9, Creighton 1 18,578
2003 Nebraska 9, Creighton 5 11,014
2004 Nebraska 12, Creighton 1 10,261

NU continued its climb in the national polls on Monday, jumping from seventh to fourth in Collegiate Baseball while moving to 17th (from No. 20) in Baseball America and 10th (from No. 16) in the ESPN/Sports Weekly poll (NCBWA poll is released late Monday).

Tuesday’s matchup features two teams who are at the top of their respective conferences. Nebraska, coming off a three-game sweep of Oklahoma State, is on top of the Big 12 race with a 5-1 mark, while the Bluejays are 22-7 overall and lead the Missouri Valley Conference with a 5-1 record after taking 2-of-3 from Southern Illinois last weekend in Omaha.

On Wednesday, the Huskers will meet one of its oldest, yet most infrequent rivals as Iowa comes to town. Although the series began in 1897, the two teams will meet for the first time since 1930 on Wednesday in a game is believed to be the first time the two teams have ever played in Lincoln. The Hawkeyes are 6-13 on the season after splitting a four-game series with Michigan State last weekend. Tickets are available for Wednesday’s game at the Hawks Field Ticket office 90 minutes before first pitch or by calling 800-8-BIGRED.

Leading Off
?-Nebraska’s .893 winning percentage (25-3 record) is the nation’s best entering the week, narrowly ahead of Oregon State’s .857 (24-4).

?-Nebraska Head Coach Mike Anderson coached his 150th game at Nebraska in Friday’s series opener vs. Oklahoma State, becoming only the fourth Husker coach to reach that mark in program history. His winning percentage is the second-highest among any Husker coach at the 150-game mark. Here are the totals of the other three Husker skippers at the 150-game plateau.

Husker Coaches at 150-Game Mark
Coach 150-Game Record Pct.
John Sanders 108-42 .720
Mike Anderson 106-44 .707
Dave Van Horn 100-50 .667
Tony Sharpe 92-56-2 .620

?-At 25-3, the Huskers are enjoying one of their best starts in the program’s 100-plus year history, as only the 1983 squad - a team that opened the year with a school-record 26 consecutive wins - started better.

Best 28-Game Starts in School History

No. 28-Game Record Final Record
1983 26-2 44-15
2005 25-3 --
1979 23-5 49-15
2004 23-5 36-23

*-The Huskers have also gotten off to quick starts, scoring at least one run in the first inning in 17 of 28 games and outscoring its opponents 31-6 in the first inning of games this season.

?-The Huskers’ pitching has been a strength in the early season, as NU leads the Big 12 with a 2.15 ERA. In fact, the Huskers have allowed only two opponents - USC on March 6 and Kansas on March 26 - to score more than four runs in a game this season.

?-After having just one multi-homer game in 2004, Nebraska has six already this season, including two each by Alex Gordon (Lincoln, Neb.) and Curtis Ledbetter (Lawrence, Kan.).

?-With complete-game shutouts by Zach Kroenke and Brian Duensing, Nebraska became the first team to hand Oklahoma State consecutive shutouts since 1976. It also marked the first time since March of 2002 that Nebraska received back-to-back complete-game shutouts (Jamie Rodrigue and Aaron Marsden).

?- Nebraska nearly set a school record two weeks ago, ending a streak of 61.0 consecutive innings without an error (dating back to March 15) in the ninth inning of the March 26 loss to the Jayhawks. The streak was just shy of the record mark of 63.1 innings set last season. Since committing eight errors in the season-opening trip to Hawaii-Hilo, NU has committed just 13 errors in its last 23 contests.

?-Prior to Johnny Dorn’s 10-strikeout performance against Creighton last Tuesday, the last Husker freshman to strikeout 10 hitters in a game was Shane Komine, who fanned 16 Cyclones in a relief effort on April 18, 1999. The last Husker freshman starter to record the feat was Steve Hale, who fanned 10 against UW-Milwaukee on Feb. 27, 1999.

?-NU has scored at least one run in 414 of the last 415 games dating back to the 1998 season. In 2004, the Huskers were the only Big 12 team not shut out.

?-Nebraska has scored three runs or more in an inning 25 times already this season, including an 11-run inning against South Dakota State on March 13.

?-Nebraska has had two players honored as Collegiate Baseball’s National Player of the Week this season, as Alex Gordon was chosen on March 22, joining Joba Chamberlain, who earned the honor after striking out 15 over seven scoreless innings against New Mexico on Feb. 25. Gordon was honored after hitting .560 (14-for-25) with four homers and 10 RBIs in leading the Huskers to a 6-0 mark. He is the first Husker position player honored by the publication since All-American Jed Morris in 2002.

?-Last Tuesday’s crowd of 7,278 was NU’s highest single-game regular-season total in school history (fifth-largest overall), topping the 6,879 fans who saw a win over Texas on April 18, 2003.

?-Nebraska drew 18,144 fans for its three-game series against Oklahoma State last weekend, the most for a Big 12 series in Lincoln since drawing 18,358 for a three-game set with Baylor in 2003.