Experienced Nebraska baseball team looking for productive fall

Just beyond the horizon line of the outfield fence, it’s football season at Memorial Stadium. But inside the walls of Haymarket Park, Nebraska baseball’s fall practice begins with a chance to build on the program’s first Big Ten title.

“We’re excited to get back out here,” seventh-year head coach Darin Erstad said before Tuesday’s practice, Nebraska’s first on the diamond since an elimination loss in the NCAA Corvallis Regional.

“We have a lot of veterans, so thankfully we have a lot of eyes that will help us and help the younger guys as well.”

Erstad brings his 211-141-1 record as the Huskers’ skipper into a year with one of his most experienced teams. Key contributors are back in the fold, led by seniors Scott Schreiber and Jake Hohensee as well as juniors Angelo Altavilla, Jesse Wilkening, and Chad Luensmann.

There are plenty of storylines to watch during Fall Ball, including the replacements of two starting pitchers and the right side of the infield.

Senior pitcher Luis Alvarado was one of three Huskers selected in June's MLB First Year Player draft along with Schreiber and Jake Meyers.

The versatile right-hander was arguably Nebraska's best pitcher last year, operating in a closer role with a 1.72 ERA and a team-leading 10 saves.

MLB draft guru Jason A. Churchill tweeted in June that Alvarado had a "live, loose arm" and a "projectable, athletic frame." Others echoed the sentiment that the longtime Husker outfielder's future was on the mound, which prompted Alvarado to make the full transition heading into fall ball.

"I'm not going to be doing outfield for now," Alvarado said, explaining the different feeling he got in summer ball when he wasn't on the field every game. "I'm just going to be concentrating on pitching."

In his first year pitching for the Huskers, Alvarado topped out at 95 miles per hour and mixed his pitches well, but his longest outing was just 1.1 innings. This year, the senior wants to become a full-time starter.

"That's something that I wanted to do with the help of the coaches," Alvarado said. "If I work to be a starter and then finish up being a reliever, it's just a little bit easier because you throw less innings, so nothing out of the normal."

The top priority for the Huskers over the summer was staying healthy as players scattered across the country for summer leagues. However, he also posed a challenge to his players heading into the offseason and was pleased with how his team delivered.

"If you follow summer college baseball, it's very interesting, if things aren't absolutely perfect, people go home," Erstad explained. "My challenge to our guys was to grind it out whether it's good or bad and stick with it, and man did they ever stick with it."

Altavilla's St. Cloud (Minn.) team had a productive summer and won the Northwoods League, while Schreiber, Luensmann, and Alvarado played together for the Bourne Braves of the elite Cape Cod League.

"They really committed to it and stayed with their teams all the way to the end," Erstad said. "We had some guys that had some really good summers, but more than anything, just that commitment when things aren't absolutely perfect to grind it out, they did that and that's a good step."

With senior right-hander Jake Hohensee holding the torch as the only returning starter on the mound, a key thing to watch this fall will be who steps up to put themselves into that conversation.

Alvarado and junior Matt Waldron look to be the favorites heading into the season, but underclassmen like Paul Tillotson, Connor Curry, and Ethan Frazier also saw starts on the mound in 2017.

"That stuff will all play itself out," Erstad said. "Like I always tell them, 'you guys decide who it is when the lights come on.'

"But we're a long ways from that. We've got a lot of work to do; we've got to get better today and that's what we're going to do."

*** Junior right-handers Zack Engelken and Reece Eddins are expected to come back strong in 2017. Engelken fell behind schedule and took a redshirt year in 2017, while Eddins was granted a medical redshirt after having season-ending surgery.

*** Senior Creighton transfer Matt Warren was also granted a medical redshirt, giving him a sixth year of eligibility. Erstad says his presence in the locker room was "huge" last year, even though he wasn't able to see the field.