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Baseball Weekend Preview: Oklahoma City Regional

Nebraska is back in action this weekend looking to extend their postseason play as the team left Wednesday afternoon for Oklahoma City for the NCAA Regionals. The Huskers head into the tournament as the No. 3 seed in the bracket and will face the likes of No. 9 national seed Oklahoma State as well as a pair of east-coast teams in the UConn Huskies and Harvard Crimson.

The Cornhuskers are coming off of a strong showing in the Big Ten tournament but that performance is unfortunately overshadowed by a 3-1 loss to conference tournament champions Ohio State. While the result was certainly not what the team was looking for, some strong pitching and elevated hitting in recent weeks can be looked at as a glimmer of optimism for Darin Erstad and co.

Regardless of the string of good games Nebraska has put together in the past few weeks, Erstad doesn't want to get too wrapped up in the twists and turns of the game. "[Baseball] is going to throw at you a lot of ups and downs and challenge your mentality and your confidence, how tight your team is and all those things," Erstad said. "They've had those ups and downs and have fought through it. It doesn't matter what the stats are, it's a clean slate. That's the beauty of postseason baseball."

Nebraska starts its NCAA tournament run this Friday at 12:00 PM CT as they take on the No. 2 seed UConn Huskies while No. 1 Oklahoma State will square off against No. 4 Harvard in the nightcap. The losers of those two games will meet up for the first elimination game Saturday at 1:00 PM while the winners of the Friday matchups will go head-to-head following the elimination game at 7:00 PM.

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Probable Friday Starters

Friday, 12 p.m. vs UConn Huskies (Away): LHP Nate Fisher (7-3, 2.88 ERA) vs LHP Mason Feole (3-3, 3.50 ERA)

***All games this weekend can be streamed on ESPN3 and, as always, can be heard on Husker Sports Network with Greg Sharpe and Ben McLaughlin

What to look for

Huskers return to Bricktown: The history for Nebraska baseball's rise into national relevancy has its roots buried deep in Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in downtown Oklahoma City. The Huskers started a string of back-to-back-to-back Big 12 conference titles between 1999 and 2001, all three of which were won at Bricktown. The 1999 championship was capped off with the Huskers first Regional appearance in 14 years and the first since 1985 when former head man John Sanders led Nebraska to the NCAA tournament back in the Big 8 Conference days.

Following the '99 season, Nebraska would continue to climb the ladder of the postseason baseball hierarchy. The Huskers would reach the schools first ever Super Regional in the 2000 season while the 2001 squad would one-up that mark the following year with the first College World Series appearance in program history. Nebraska would also go on to win the 2005 conference title in the same ballpark on their way to the most successful season in program history.

Players unbothered by 3-seed: Many postseason projections had Nebraska firmly in the tournament as a 2-seed and it may have surprised some fans when it was announced that the Huskers dropped down to a No. 3 seed down in Oklahoma.

While seeing a 'No. 2' in front of Nebraska's name may be more aesthetically pleasing, this Husker squad isn't going to be phased by the higher-rated teams in the tournament and junior pitcher Robbie Palkert hammered that point home. "We try not to look too much in the seeding, quite honestly," Palkert said. "Whether you're the two [seed] or the three [seed], you're playing the same team, so that didn't really bother us.

"As far as competition goes, all the teams in that tournament are really good. There have been times where we've fallen into that trap where we may overlook a team because we're looking at the 1-seed but this year, that's definitely not going to happen. We're attacking every game as if it's our last," Palkert concluded.

Upperclassmen looking to end on a high note: It's no secret that the past few postseason appearances for the Huskers have not ended the way they had hoped. In 2016, the Huskers went 0-2 against Oklahoma State and Western Carolina while the team went two and out in 2017 against Yale and Holy Cross. "It's frustrating," said Palkert. "I don't want to sit here and talk about the last couple of years but it's definitely frustrating."

If anything, the team feels that they've learned from their past postseason blunders and want to push through. This includes Palkert now that he's one of the veteran players that he looked up to just a few seasons ago. "Freshman year and sophomore year we sat there and I felt mostly for the old guys," Palkert recalled. "Now that I'm one of the older guys, I don't want that to happen, that was such a crappy feeling."

The bottom line for the team in Palkert's eyes is to continue to battle and do the things they know they can do. "Just going out there and giving it our best stuff and just competing," Palkert said. "We've talked all year about how this team fights and we fight through no matter what happens to us."

Know your opponents

No. 1 Oklahoma State: The Cowboys are a red-hot team heading into June, winning 11 of their last 13 games including a sweep of Oregon State and a Big 12 tournament championship. Head coach Josh Holliday is in his seventh season at the helm with an overall record of 267-150-1 and making it to the NCAA Tournament in each season he has led the Cowboys. Under Holliday, the Cowboys made it to Omaha in 2016, the first time for the program since 1999.

No. 2 Connecticut: The Huskies finished their conference season in a somewhat similar fashion to the Cornhuskers, having lost the conference title game by a score of 22-5 to fellow tournament team Cincinnati. UConn has one of the best pitchers in the country on their roster in junior closer Jacob Wallace boasting an ERA of .73 in 37.0 innings, striking out 56 total batters and only allowing three runs. It was announced earlier this week that Wallace was the only closer named as one of five finalists for National Pitcher of the Year presented by the College Baseball Association.

No. 4 Harvard: Harvard earned the Ivy League's automatic bid into the NCAA tournament earlier this month when the team took a best-of-three series against Columbia, marking the Crimson's first trip to Regionals since 2005. In Game 1 of the series, starting pitcher Hunter Bigge threw a complete game and only allowed one run in the contest. Bigge also went on to hit a home run in a tight 3-1 game. Head coach of the Crimson Bill Decker won Coach of the Year in the Ivy League in 2019 while also tacking on career win No. 100 earlier in the season against Radford.

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