Huskers take the series against Purdue with a 4-0 win

Nebraska baseball (3-1) shut out the Purdue Boilermakers once again and completed a series win after beating Purdue (1-3) 4-0 on Sunday.

Once again the Big Red got off to a strong start with a home run from Spencer Schwellenbach in the top of the first inning. The junior was the third player to step up the plate, and after the two before him got out, Schwellenbach ripped a ball over the left field wall to give NU a lead that they did not look back.

In the other half of the inning, junior Jake Bunz took the mound for his first start as a Husker. Bunz is a transfer from Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College where he had an impressive freshman season, but didn't play last year due to COVID. The plan with Bunz was to keep his pitch count down because of a past injury, so after three solid innings giving up just one hit, the junior left the mound.

In to pitch came Sayer Diederich who went three up, three down with two strikeouts. Diederich was only given one inning, and following him was Koty Frank. The junior came in and also struck out two batters and forced a fly ball, and that was all he got from the mound.

Max Schreiber was next to pitch, and he was given 1.1 innings giving up three hits for no runs. The fifth pitcher for the Big Red was Cam Wynne who finished out the seventh inning with a strikeout to retire the side. Wynne allowed no hits and walked one.

The next and final two pitchers for Nebraska were Jaxon Hallmark and Spencer Schwellenbach respectively who came from the field and pitched one inning each. Hallmark gave up two hits with one out and got into a tricky situation, but his infield helped him out after a ground ball to the shortstop ended in a double play to retire the side.

Going into the ninth inning, NU was only up 2-0 and had gotten out of some jams, so a couple more runs for cushion is what they were looking for. Freshman Jack Steil, who hit an RBI double in the second inning delivered again with a moonshot over the left field wall that put the Big Red up 4-0

In to close the game was Spencer Schwellenbach who did so convincingly. The right-handed pitcher, who played shortstop for eight innings, went to the mound and struck out two batters while clocking a 97 MPH fastball. The final out of the game came with line drive to Efry Cervantes and the Huskers moved to 3-1 on the season.

Nebraska found themselves in quite a few jams in this game, and finding a way out was what led them to victory. In the third inning, starting pitcher Jake Bunz walked three Boilermakers to load the bases with two outs, but he found a way. Under that pressure, Bunz caught Ben Nisle chasing and escaped trouble.

The next jam came in the seventh inning when Max Schreiber gave up a single and walked another to put two runners on. Out came Cam Wynne who struck one out, but walked the next, loading the bases. Wynne then struck out the next batter, leaving another three Purdue players stranded.

The clutch pitching from NU kept them in this game even when the offense wasn't at their best.

Yet another day where the Big Red had debuts. Starting pitcher Jake Bunz and first baseman Jack Steil both made their Husker debut and neither disappointed. Bunz only pitched three innings, but gave up no runs and just one hit in his first official start since 2019.

Jack Steil also showed off as the leading player from the batter's box going 2-3 with three RBI. The freshman's two hits accounted for half of the team's hits and three of the four runs scored. One of those hits caught the eyes of many as it was a ball that was smashed over the left field wall in the top of the ninth.

You couldn't have asked for a better weekend for the newcomers in Bolt's program.

After wrapping up this series with a win, the Huskers head to Minneapolis for a four-game series where they will play Ohio State and Iowa each twice.

The first game of the series is against Ohio State and is slated for 3:00 p.m. on Friday. All four games of the series can be streamed on BTN+ and heard on Husker Sports Network.