Huskers to Battle Bluejays at Rosenblatt

No. 8 Nebraska (37-12)
vs. Creighton (29-16) 

Tuesday May 16
Rosenblatt Stadium 
7:08 p.m.

Pitching Probables
NU-Charlie Shirek, R-Fr., RHP (3-2, 3.31 ERA, 54.1 IP)
CU-Ben Mancuso, So., LHP (4-4, 4.03 ERA, 44.2 IP)

Media Information
Television: Tuesday on NET (Ch. 12/NET-HD, Ch. 112) and College Sports Television (Ch. 305 on Time Warner)
Live Stats: Huskers.com
Radio: Pinnacle Sports Network
Internet Radio: Huskers.com
Video Streaming: NET

Lincoln - The Nebraska baseball team takes on the Creighton Bluejays Tuesday night at Omaha’s Rosenblatt Stadium.

First pitch is set for 7:08 p.m., and the game will be carried across the state on the Pinnacle Sports Network, including KLIN (1400 AM) in Lincoln, KFAB (1110 AM) in Omaha and KRVN (880 AM) in Lexington, and on the Internet at Huskers.com.

Tuesday’s game will also be shown across the state on Nebraska Educational Television (NET-1, Ch. 12; NET-HD, Ch. 112) and nationally on CSTV (Ch. 305 in Lincoln on Time Warner Cable; Ch. 610 on DirecTV and Ch. 152 on Dish Network).

One of the largest crowds in college baseball this season is expected, as over 17,400 tickets have been sold as of 11 a.m. for the series finale between the two squads. In 2005, a crowd of 20,011 watched the regular-season finale between the two clubs.

The Huskers, who clinched the annual series with two wins last month, are going for the sweep of Creighton for the third time in seven seasons (also 2000 and 2003). Nebraska won the first two meetings, 6-4 at Rosenblatt on April 4 and 4-2 two weeks later at Hawks Field.

The Huskers are 37-12 on the season and come to Rosenblatt looking to snap a four-game losing streak, as NU was swept at Baylor over the weekend, the first time the Huskers had been swept since the 2004 campaign. Nebraska will look to break out of an offensive funk that has seen the Huskers average 2.3 runs per game in that stretch, well below the 7.2 average that NU averaged through its first 45 games of the season.

Despite the recent struggles,the Huskers still have an RPI in the top-10 nationally, ranking as high as sixth in warrennolan.com and eighth in boydsworld.com. NU dipped in the national polls released Monday, falling from fifth to eighth in Baseball America and from sixth to 10th in Collegiate Baseball.

Creighton comes off one of its best weeks of the season and has won five straight following a sweep of Indiana State. CU is 29-16 on the season. The Bluejays are still in contention for a share of the Missouri Valley title with a 12-9 record heading into a weekend series at Northern Iowa.

Following Tuesday’s game, the Huskers return home to take on Oklahoma in an important Big 12 series. At 16-8, the Huskers are one game
up on both the Sooners and Oklahoma State for second.

Leading Off

?-Nebraska has played well in front of the cameras this season, going 6-0 in televised games.

?-The Huskers’ .239 team average last weekend at Baylor marked only the second time this season that NU failed to hit .300 or better in a Big 12 series. The Huskers’ previous low was a .291 average at Texas. NU leads the Big 12 in team battiung average in conference games with a .315 team average.

?-Andrew Brown’s two-homer game on Friday at Baylor marked the Huskers’ sixth multi-homer game of the season.

?-With over 16,200 tickets already sold for Tuesday’s game, the crowd will rank among the three largest regular-season games this season.

?-Despite its recent slide over the past 10 days, Nebraska’s 37-12 record is the identical mark of the 2000 and 2001 teams after 49 games and two games behind last season’s 57-win team.

?-Nebraska is three wins away from achieving its 16th 40-win season in school history, including seventh in the past eight seasons. In fact, the Huskers are tied with Texas Tech for the most 40-win seasons in Big 12 history with six apiece.

?-Nebraska has gotten off to fast starts, outscoring its opponents 52-18 in the first inning of games this season. In fact, NU has scored at least one run in the first inning in 21 of its last 32 contests.

?-Nebraska has held 33 of its first 49 opponents to four runs or less this season and its 3.9 runs allowed per game ranks seventh nationally.

?-Entering this week, NU is now sixth in the latest simulated RPI (warrennolan.com and eighth in Boydsworld.com). NU is 26-10 against teams rated in the top 100 of the RPI, As a league, the Big 12 is third in the RPI, with four teams in the top-15 (NU, Texas, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State).

?-Nebraska is well represented in the latest NCAA stats released May 10. The Huskers rank in the top-20 in five team categories, including ERA (3.19, ninth), slugging percentage (.510, 10th), fielding percentage (.976, 11th), homers per game (1.33, 11th) and batting average (.326, 16th). Individually, Luke Gorsett ranks among the national leaders in homers per game (18th) and slugging percentage (23rd). Other Huskers ranked in the top-30 nationally include Brandon Buckman, who is 24th in homers per game, Johnny Dorn, who is 11th nationally in wins and Joba Chamberlain, who is 33rd in strikeouts per nine innings.

?-Nebraska has committed one error or less in 36 of its first 49 contests, including 16 games without an error.

?-One of NU’s keys to success is the ability to run while shutting down other team’s running games. NU is second in the Big 12 with 78 stolen bases, including 32-of-45 in Big 12 play, and has allowed a league-low 31 stolen bases.

?-While NU’s pitching has been as good as advertised for most of the 2006 campaign, NU’s offensive numbers have been among the Big 12 leaders in most categories. The Huskers’ .317 team average is on pace for NU’s best team average since the 2001 CWS team hit .334.

?-Nebraska is one of only seven teams in all of Division I baseball to post team ERAs below 4.00 over the last four years, joining Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, Oral Roberts, Rice, Texas and Wichita State. The Huskers were second nationally with a 2.69 team ERA in 2005.

?- The Huskers are 12-5 in games decided by two runs or less this season.

?-Nebraska’s consecutive shutouts of Texas and Wichita State last month marked the first time ever that any school had posted consecutive shutouts against college baseball’s two winningest coaches (Texas’ Augie Garrido and Wichita State’s Gene Stephenson).

?-Nebraska has already sold out all the reserved and club seats at Hawks Field for the 2006 season. NU ranked sixth nationally in average attendance, averaging a school-record 4,984 fans per game in 2005. The Huskers are averaging 4,307 fans per game this spring, including four of the 20 largest crowds in school history.

?-Nebraska is one of only three teams in the country that returned two pitchers who won at least 10 games in 2005 (Oregon State and Miami of Ohio are the others).

?-Nebraska is one of only six programs nationally to reach the College World Series in three of the past five seasons, joining Cal State Fullerton, Miami, South Carolina, Stanford and Texas. The Big 12 is the only league with more than one team in that group.

?- Nebraska has scored at least one run in each of its last 180 games dating back to the start of the 2004 campaign. The streak is the longest in the Big 12, while NU has scored in 511 of the last 512 games dating back to the 1998 season.

?-NU already has 12 come-from-behind wins this season, including a trio of four-run deficits, most recently against Texas Tech on April 29.

?-Tuesday’s game will show off the talent among Nebraska high schools. In all, 35 players on the two teams are from the state of Nebraska. In addition, both teams have several former sets of high school or junior college teammates on their respective rosters.

Last Time Out
Friday (Baylor 6, Nebraska 5): Andrew Brown hit a pair of homers, but a ninth-inning rally fell short in a 6-5 loss in the series opener. Brown hit a pair of solo homers ? his sixth and seventh of the year ? while Jake Opitz drove in three runs, including a two-run ninth-inning single that pulled NU within a run. Two costly errors in the first two frames forced NU to fight back from a 4-1 deficit. Joba Chamberlain kept the Huskers in the game, fanning a season-high 12 Bears over 6.1 innings, but took the loss to dip to 5-4 on the year.

Saturday (Baylor 4, NU 1): Andrew Brown matched his career high with three hits, but the Huskers could not overcome a strong effort by Cory VanAllen in a 4-1 loss. Brown went 3-for-4, while Luke Gorsett drove in NU’s only RBI with a sacrifice fly in the first inning. VanAllen, who allowed one run on four hits over 6.1 inning, outdueled Tony Watson, who allowed four runs over 6.1 innings to snap his personal 12-game win streak.

Sunday (Baylor 12, NU 2): Brandon Buckman drove in a pair of runs, while Ryan Wehrle had two hits as the Huskers dropped the series finale on Sunday. Baylor chased NU starter Johnny Dorn in the third after the shortest start of his career, as four different BU players had two RBIs apiece. Zach Dillon did most of the damage for the Bears, going 2-for-2 and scoring four times. Buckman’s sixth-inning RBI single off starter Jeff Mandel provided NU’s lone offensive highlight.

2006 Series vs. Creighton
April 4 (NU 6, Creighton 4): Brandon Buckman’s ninth-inning homer broke a 4-all tie, as sixth-ranked Nebraska posted a 6-4 victory over No. 21 Creighton on Tuesday. Buckman went 3-for-5 with two homers, his seventh and eighth of the season, while adding three RBIs in his third multi-homer game of the season. Buckman’s heroics made a winner of NU closer Brett Jensen, who pitched a scoreless 2.1 innings of one-hit ball to improve to 4-0 on the season. Luke Gorsett had three hits, including an RBI while Jake Mort drove in a pair of runs for NU.

April 18 (NU 4, Creighton 2): Charlie Shirek allowed two runs over 7.2 innings, while Luke Gorsett drove in two runs, leading No. 4 Nebraska to a 4-2 win over Creighton. Shirek took a shutout into the eighth, as he scattered nine hits and fanned three to improve to 2-1 on the season. Erik Bird then slammed the door, getting the Huskers out of a two-on, two-out situation in the eighth before retiring the side in order in the ninth for his first career save. Gorsett provided the game’s big hit with a two-run double in the first off Creighton starter and loser Jeff Daneff. Bryce Nimmo also homered for NU, which was out-hit 9-6, by the Bluejays.

Scouting Creighton
Head Coach Ed Servais (112-57 in three seasons at CU) has the Bluejays in position to claim a share of the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season title with a 29-16 mark, including a 12-9 MVC record. CU has won seven of its last eight contests, including a series win at Missouri State and a sweep of Indiana State last weekend.

Offensively, senior Zach Daeges leads the Bluejays in all three triple crown categories, hitting .380 with 12 homers and 46 RBIs. He is one of five Bluejay regulars hitting over .300 on the season. Daeges and catcher Chris Gradoville (.283-7-37) combine for 21 of the Bluejays’ 32 homers on the season.

Sophomore Ben Mancuso will make the start for Creighton on Tuesday, as he is 4-4 with a 4.03 ERA in 12 appearances. He has made 10 starts and is holding opponents to a .244 average in 44.2 innings of work.

NU leads the all-time series, 60-42-2 and has won 10-of-13 meetings since Mike Anderson took over in 2003. NU has won its last four meetings with Creighton dating back to the 2005 NCAA Lincoln Regional.