LINCOLN, Neb. – Strong starting pitching, early runs and a four-run seventh for Nebraska overcame a four-hit day for Penn State’s Greg Guers (Langhorne, Pa.) and led the Cornhuskers to an 8-1 victory over the Nittany Lions in Big Ten baseball action Sunday afternoon on Hawks Field in Haymarket Park.
(Photo courtest of Penn State Athletics)
Guers led Penn State (27-25, 11-10 Big Ten), accounting for four of its five hits. He went 3-for-4 with a triple and the lone run. First baseman Tyler Kendall (Boynton Beach, Fla.) had the lone RBI.
For Nebraska (33-18, 13-8 Big Ten), LHP Jake Meyers (5-1) went 7 2/3 innings, allowing just one run on four hits with five strikeouts. First baseman Ben Miller and right fielder Scott Schreiber powered the Huskers offense, combining to go 7-for-8 with six RBIs. Schreiber went 4-for-4 with two home runs and three RBIs, while Miller went 3-for-4 with a double and three RBIs.
Nebraska scored a run each in four of the first five innings. In the first, Miller hit an RBI-single with two outs for the games’ first run. The Huskers manufactured a run in the second inning following a double down the right line by second baseman Jake Schleppenbach, sacrificing him to third before centerfielder Ryan Boldt used a sacrifice fly to allow him to trot home. Catcher Taylor Fish hit into a run-scoring fielder’s choice for a 3-0 lead in the third. The fourth was scoreless but Schreiber hit a solo home run to right field in the fifth for a 4-0 lead.
Guers answered in the seventh with a leadoff triple and he scored on Kendall’s groundout, but Miller and Schreiber drove in four runs in the bottom half for the final margin. Miller hit a two-run double and Schreiber sent the very next pitch over the left field wall for his Big Ten-leading 13th home run of the season.
RHP Justin Hagenman (6-3) (Voorhees, N.J.) suffered the loss, allowing four runs on nine hits and a walk in 4 2/3 innings.
Penn State will next host Iowa in a three-game Big Ten series starting Thursday at 6:30 p.m. The Nittany Lions will likely need to win at least two games to guarantee a berth in the Big Ten Tournament, depending on the outcome of the rest of Sunday’s games.
The Nittany Lions were originally scheduled to play at Villanova Tuesday, but that game has been canceled as Penn State will reach the maximum number of fall exhibition and regular season games allowed (56 total) by NCAA rules with the three Iowa games. The Lions scheduled one fall exhibition game and 56 regular season games to over-schedule by one game in anticipation of losing at least one game due to weather, but they have not so far. Penn State lost seven games due to weather last season and has not played as many as 55 regular season games since 2008.
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