Belfonte Powers Huskers to 12-6 Win over South Dakota State

Lincoln ? DJ Belfonte belted two of Nebraska’s three homers, as the Husker baseball team wrapped up a perfect homestand with an 11-6 victory over South Dakota State Tuesday afternoon.

Belfonte continued his strong start, going 3-for-4 with a pair of homers, three RBIs and scored four times in helping Nebraska (8-7) to its fifth straight win. The senior center fielder from Kansas City enjoyed his first career multi-homer day in 181 career games while also establishing a career best for runs scored.

While Belfonte enjoyed a career afternoon at the top of the lineup, freshman Josh Scheffert came up with the game’s biggest hit, a three-run homer in the first off of SDSU starter Shane Kraemer, to help the Huskers jump out to a 4-0 lead after one inning. Scheffert drove in a career-high four runs, going 2-for-4, as Nebraska took an 11-2 lead after five innings and cruised to the win.

Nebraska pounded out 14 hits, as Adam Bailey had two hits and two RBI, while Kale Kiser had went 2-for-2 with two runs scored. The top four spots in the order went a combined to go 12-for-17 with 10 RBIs and eight runs scored.

“From an offensive side, I really liked our discipline,” Nebraska Coach Mike Anderson said. “It’s a tough deal. You’ve got some external environments, the cold weather, the score gets out of hand a little bit and all of a sudden you lose that focus and discipline of what we’re trying to do to get runs across. I thought we were good, out of the eight innings we hit, for about five or six of them.”

Sean Yost earned the victory, as he went 4.1 innings on a pre-determined pitch count to improve to 2-1 on the season. The right-hander struck out two and held the Jackrabbits (8-5) scoreless until the fifth.

“Sean (Yost) did a good job,” Anderson said. “He was impressive. One thing we try and work on with Sean is extending him and not having little lulls in his outings. There was a stretch in there where he got complacent. Other than that, I thought his outing was good. What’s nice to see out of these young men is that when they are challenged they are going at it. I thought Sean had been challenged and he had a good outing today.”

Nebraska tagged Kraemer for five runs in the first two frames to take a quick lead. In the first, Belfonte was hit by a pitch before Kiser walked to put two on and no outs. Bailey then roped a single to right center to plate Belfonte before Scheffert ripped a 2-0 pitch into the berm in left center, giving NU a 4-0 lead just four hitters into the first.  One inning later, Belfonte lofted a Kraemer offering into the bullpen in right to give Yost a five-run cushion.

The Jackrabbits got on the board in the fifth with a pair of runs, including an RBI single by Scott Hood, to pull within 6-2, but the Huskers responded with six runs in the bottom of the inning to take a commanding 11-2 lead. The Huskers sent 11 hitters to plate, and got four straight RBI singles by Belfonte, Kiser, Bailey and Scheffert.

Joel Blake and John Lee both went 4-for-5 for SDSU, while Blake doubled twice and drove in three runs in a losing effort.

The Huskers will return to action on Friday night, as they begin a three-game series at No. 2 Texas. First pitch is slated for 6 p.m. and the game will be heard across the entire Husker Sports Network and on Huskers.com. In addition, HuskersNside will have live video coverage both Friday and Saturday, while the finale is televised by Fox College Sports.