OKLAHOMA CITY - Following a gutwrenching loss to Oklahoma State late Saturday night, the Nebraska Cornhuskers (32-24, 15-9 Big Ten) had to reset and get ready for a quick turnaround against the UConn Huskies (38-24, 12-12 American) on Sunday. There's no sugarcoating this one, the Huskers got walloped by the Huskies. Nebraska struggled all around the field in this one on their way to a 16-1 blowout loss to the Huskies, ending the Huskers 2019 season.

For a majority of the game, UConn's scoring was incredibly methodical but effective against the Nebraska pitchers. The score was kept relatively low for the first seven innings but an offensive explosion from the Huskies in the last two innings would completely shut the door on any hope that the Huskers could come back.

"That's a crazy turn of events," head coach Darin Erstad said of the last 24 hours. "You're one out from only needing one win to needing three wins and it was a quick turnaround. Look, UConn has been swinging the ball well all tournament and we just had no answer for them on the mound."

The scoring got started for the Huskies right out of the gate when an RBI single from Christian Fedko would score John Toppa to give UConn a 1-0 lead. UConn would tack another run on the board off of a no-doubt home run to left field off the bat of Christian's brother Kyler Fedko.

In the fourth, the Huskers were finally able to sit down the leadoff batter in an inning but a triple from on-deck batter Thad Phillips set the Huskies up perfectly to get another run across which they did one at-bat later on an RBI bunt for a single, giving UConn the 3-0 lead.

Nebraska's only real threat to the Huskies came in the bottom half of the fourth when Aaron Palensky and Spencer Schwellenbach were able to reach base on a single and walk. Angelo Altavilla would score Palensky on an RBI single but a 6-4-3 double play would end the inning, stopping the Huskers dead in their tracks.

The lone run was way too little, way too late for Nebraska as the Huskies would go on to score a total of 13 more runs between innings five through nine, defeating the Cornhuskers and advancing to play Oklahoma State in the regional finals.

Erstad said that this is a group of players that he cares about a lot and will remember for a long time just because of the way that they fought throughout the season. "I've loved a lot of teams we've had here, I love this team the most just as far as the fight that they have," Erstad said of his ball club.

"You look at our numbers, we have no business being here where we're at, and that's just a credit to them fighting and finding a way to win."

For the second game in a row, the Nebraska offense really didn't do much in the latter part of the game to put many runs on the board. In five of the nine innings against the UConn pitching staff, the Huskers would go three up, three down.

UConn starter Colby Dunlop was incredibly effective against Nebraska batters holding the Huskers to only two more hits following Altavilla's RBI single back in the fourth. Dunlop finished the day setting a career-high in innings pitched with 8.0 as well as total pitches with 88.

The reason the UConn starter was able to keep his pitch count so low was due to Husker batters inability to see pitches and go deep in the count. Nebraska would only have four of their 29 at-bats go more than four pitches, allowing Dunlop to set those personal record marks and settle in against the batting lineup.

Freshman pitcher Shay Schanaman came on in relief of starting pitcher Reece Eddins and inherited a less-than-ideal situation. Eddins had only allowed four runs in 4.1 innings of action, but it was off of 10 hits, three of which were for extra bags.

Schanaman was able to come in and quiet the Husky bats the best he could, allowing only one run on two hits in 2.2 innings, but there was no coming back from the performance of the UConn batters.

Following Schnamans exit in the seventh inning, Nebraska threw six more pitchers with only three of them recording an out in the eighth and ninth innings. In total, the Nebraska pitchers we saw that weren't named Reece Eddins or Shay Schanaman allowed 11 runs on 12 hits with only four strikeouts and five walks.

The UConn bats were absolutely on fire this weekend against Nebraska. On Friday, the Huskies set their season high for hits by putting 19 in the field of play and, on Sunday, would set a season-high against the Huskers again with 22.

While the Husky bats were all over the place against Nebraska, the UConn batters have been electric at the plate this entire weekend. Combined with the 41 hits against Nebraska, UConn finished Saturday with 17 hits against Harvard to put their weekend total through three games at 58.

Head coach of the Huskies Jim Penders said this is rather uncharacteristic of his team to be hitting the ball the way they are but will certainly take it in postseason play. "We haven't really hit consistently all year," the Husky skipper said. "What you're seeing is something new and I think the guys just loosened up, they finally loosened up. They're swinging the bats great and hopefully we can continue that in the next game."