Baseball Weekend Preview: Maryland

The Nebraska baseball (13-5) team will return home to Haymarket Park this weekend for a three-game series against Maryland (9-10). The Huskers are coming off a series win over Illinois last weekend where they came from behind to win Sunday's rubber match.

The series win over the Illini should boost their confidence quite a bit. NU won the first game of the series, but lost the second. In the final game, they trailed early, but a seven-run third inning changed the game for the Big Red and helped them win.

The Nebraska bats have been nothing short of entertaining so far this season. Over the entire weekend against Illinois, the Huskers scored 28 runs. NU hit their third grand slam of the season in this series, Brice Matthews stole home, and Cam Chick hit an inside-the-park home run. Along with that, to go with the aggressive baseball that Will Bolt has shown this season, the Big Red converted on a suicide squeeze bunt in the series opener.

Maryland is coming into this weekend after a huge 17-7 win over 25-ranked Michigan. The Terrapins lost a close 6-5 battle in the first game of the series, so they split the two games against the Wolverines. Through this season, Maryland has won series against Penn State 2-1 and Northwestern 2-0. Every other series has either been loss or split.

Friday, 4:00 p.m.: LHP Cade Povich (2-1, 3.95 ERA) vs. RHP Sean Burke (1-1, 4.78 ERA)

Saturday, 2 p.m.: RHP Chance Hroch (2-0, 5.04 ERA) vs. RHP Nick Dean (0-0, 4.50 ERA)

Sunday, 12:00 p.m.: RHP Shay Schanaman (1-0, 3.48 ERA) vs. RHP Jason Savacool (4-0, 3.82 ERA)

Schwellenbach doing it all

This season has been an impressive season thus far for Spencer Schwellenbach, who is batting .353 and has closed out six games. The junior ranks third on the team in batting average and has hit three home runs and has 14 RBI. From the mound, Schwellenbach has been a guy that Nebraska can trust late in a game. He has only allowed just five hits for no runs in seven innings pitched. The junior has also racked up four saves in his six appearances.

Getting on base

Joe Acker has moved to the leadoff spot in the batting order in the past couple of weeks. Since moving up the order he has gotten on base to start six out of the last 10 games. Acker has an on-base percentage of .489 in those last 10 games and leads the team in walks with 13.

Luke Roskam is also known to find himself on base. The senior is fourth in the Big Ten with his on-base percentage of .500. The leader of the conference is Zack Raabe of Minnesota who is just ahead of Roskam at .529.

Explosive offense

This Husker offense can break off for a big inning at any given time. The team is ranked eighth in the nation in home runs per game, averaging 1.61. NU also ranks twelfth in the nation for slugging percentage at .487.

In the conference, the Big Red ranks first in runs scored (135) and RBI (118). Nebraska sits in second in home runs with 29. With such an explosive offense, they can find themselves batting through the entire order and tacking on quite a few runs in one inning.

***Last weekend Maryland won three out of four games. The Terrapins beat Northwestern twice and split games with Michigan.

***Benjamin Cowles leads the Big Ten in home runs with nine and RBI with 25.

***The Friday starter, Sean Burke, has 47 strikeouts on the season. He averages 9.4 strikeouts per start.

***Maryland is 3-2 in true road games this year. The Terrapins split games with Ohio State in Columbus and took a series from Penn State 2-1 in Pennsylvania.