Nebraska Weekly: Weekend review, what's on tap, milestones & latest reports

Welcome to Nebraska Weekly! Every Monday in February, this is where we will review the biggest highlights of Nebraska's weekend, preview what lies ahead for Husker Athletics and – whenever possible – touch on any of the latest reports and rumors on the Huskers.

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Alexis Markowski was a monster on Saturday afternoon.

The Husker center, who was the only player in the Big Ten to average a double-double last season, produced one of her best career games with a 20-20 performance (20 points, 21 rebounds) to lead the Nebraska women's basketball team to a 77-65 road win over Purdue.

Markowski hit 9-of-18 shots from the field en route to her sixth 20-point game of the season, and she tied the fourth-best rebounding total in school history with those 21 boards.

Jaz Shelley was her running mate against the Boilermakers, pouring in 18 points (including 10-for-10 from the free throw line), eight rebounds and six assists while true freshman Logan Nissley earned her first career start and matched her career high with 18 points.

The win improved Nebraska to 17-9 overall and 9-6 in the Big Ten, and the Huskers will be looking to notch Win No. 18 and get to double-digit victories in conference play at home against Northwestern (8-17, 3-11 Big Ten) on Tuesday. The Wildcats are second-to-last in the conference and have lost 10 of their last 12 since the calendar turned to 2024.

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Here are our top three stories of the weekend in Husker Athletics:

>> We're going to have to come up with a new nickname for Husker football's trackster trio. Hey, maybe the Trackster Trio will suffice as a placeholder.

Whatever the moniker, it looks like the future is bright for Jaylen Lloyd, Jeremiah Charles and Brice Turner, who finished 1-2-3 (in that order) in their heat of the men's 60-meter race at Friday's Nebraska Tune-Up – the Husker track and field team's final meet before next weekend's Big Ten Indoor Championships. Lloyd (6.87 seconds) finished in third place overall in his debut on the track while Charles (6.95 seconds) finished eighth and Turner (7.02 seconds) finished 12th.

In another T&F note from the meet: Amelia Flynt, the older sister of Husker 2024 tight end signee Ian Flynt, won the women's shot put with a throw of 55 feet, 3.5 inches (16.85 meters).

Switching over to the wrestling mats, Mark Manning's club had the biggest dual match of the week as No. 3 Nebraska squared off against No. 1-ranked Penn State on Sunday afternoon.

Four Huskers claimed individual victories, but it wasn't enough as the Nittany Lions went home with a 22-13 team victory.

Unable to capture a bout win, though, was the Huskers' most prominent dual athlete, defensive lineman Nash Hutmacher, who squared off against top-ranked and undefeated Greg Kerkvliet at heavyweight. Kerkvliet controlled the match and momentum from the beginning and stayed undefeated on the year with the 10-0 major decision.

The Huskers' next match will close out regular-season competition as they travel to Tempe, Ariz., on Sunday to face No. 20 Arizona State. Action is set to begin at 2 p.m. (CT) and will be streamed on the Pac-12 Network.

FULL MATCH RESULTS:

No. 1 Penn State 22, No. 3 Nebraska 13

125: No. 12 Smith major dec. No. 6 Braeden Davis (PSU) 11-3 (NEB 4, PSU 0)

133: No. 17 Van Dee dec. Baylor Shunk (PSU) 6-2 (NEB 7, PSU 0)

141: No. 1 Beau Bartlett (PSU) dec. No. 7 Hardy 9-6 (NEB 7, PSU 3)

149: No. 1 Lovett dec. No. 9 Tyler Kasak (PSU) 7-3 (NEB 10, PSU 3)

157: No. 1 Levi Haines (PSU) dec. No. 7 Robb 10-3 (NEB 10, PSU 6)

165: No. 6 Mitchell Mesenbrink (PSU) dec. No. 15 Taylor 9-5 (NEB 10, PSU 9)

174: No. 1 Carter Starocci (PSU) tech. fall No. 33 Wilson 20-4 (5:58) (PSU 14, NEB 10)

184: No. 3 Pinto dec. No. 6 Bernie Truax (PSU) 8-6 (PSU 14, NEB 13)

197: No. 1 Aaron Brooks (PSU) major dec. No. 13 Silas Allred 17-4 (PSU 18, NEB 13)

HWT: No. 1 Greg Kerkvliet (PSU) major dec. Nash Hutmacher 10-0 (PSU 22, NEB 13)

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>> Will Bolt's Husker baseball squad got off to a start it hasn't experienced in four years.

Behind the pitching punch of Brett Sears and the clutch hitting of Dylan Carey, the Huskers took out Baylor on Opening Day in Arlington, Texas on Friday afternoon as part of the Shriners Children's College Showdown.

Sears struck out seven and allowed just one run on three hits with no walks across 5.1 innings, and Carey came through with a pair of two-out, go-ahead RBI doubles (in the sixth and eighth innings). Garrett Anglim then punched a solo home run over the fence in the ninth inning, and the Huskers added another insurance run in the frame to pave the way to a 4-1 win.

The Game 1 win over the Bears evened the two programs' all-time series at 25-25, and it was the Huskers' first season-opening win over a power conference opponent since 2020, when they also beat Baylor to start the year. That year, Nebraska lost seven consecutive games after beating Baylor, then won six of its next seven before the season was ultimately canceled. Talk about a roller coaster.

We'll see what's in store this year as the Huskers look to replace the production of stars Brice Matthews and Max Anderson with a higher emphasis poured into on-base percentage, team speed on the basepaths and a strong bullpen.

Things started off well and looked to be headed for an even stronger, more exciting start out of the gate. But things sharply took a wrong turn in both the Huskers' second game against No. 21-ranked Texas Tech on Saturday (6-3 loss) and against Oklahoma on Sunday (7-6 walk-off loss).

Nebraska looked primed to turn even more heads with a résumé-building win over a nationally ranked foe. The Huskers had come back from an early 3-1 deficit to tie it, but they weren't able to cash in enough chips to put enough distance between themselves and TTU.

Nebraska loaded the bases in the third inning with no outs but netted just one run. Carey came up big again with a clutch RBI to tie the game in the fifth but got caught stealing to end the inning. Nebraska stranded five runners in scoring position over the final four innings: Two in the sixth (runners on second and third with one out), one in the seventh (runner on second with one out) and one in the eighth (runner on second with two outs). Nebraska had five combined outs to work with but came up with nothing, lowlighted by three strikeouts.

Texas Tech stranded just one runner in the 6th-8th frames, but it took advantage of its opportunities in the ninth. Nebraska allowed its first walk of the season with one out, allowed a weakly hit single, and then a wild pitch put runners at second and third before a strikeout put the Huskers one out away from getting out of the frame unharmed.

But the Red Raiders drove in runs on back-to-back singles and added an insurance run for a three-run lead and then shut the door in the bottom of the ninth when the Huskers, again, let an opportunity slip as it sent the tying run to the plate with runners on the corners but Carey flew out to end the game.

The Texas Tech game was disappointing, but the Oklahoma game may have brought worse feelings to Husker fans. Against the Red Raiders, it was tied going into the ninth after Nebraska battled back from a deficit. Against the Sooners, the Huskers held a 6-3 lead heading into the bottom of the seventh.

In a flash, the Sooners had cut it to 6-5 after a two-run homer in the eighth, and they were down to their last out in the ninth. Again, the Huskers' opponent took advantage when it mattered the most while Nebraska did not: The Sooners got a game-tying RBI double (aided by a Nebraska bobble) and finished things off with a walk-off single.

When NCAA Tournament discussions begin to pick up weeks from now, we very well could be viewing both of those losses as two of the most costly squandered opportunities in building a case for an at-large bid.

That begin said: It's way, wayyyy too early to be making that determination. But it's simply food for thought. Something to keep in the back of the mind as we move forward throughout the season.

In total, Nebraska struck out 36 times over the three-game span and went a combined 3-for-21 with runners in scoring position.

If you're looking at things in a positive light: Those are bad numbers, and yet Nebraska was still squarely in the mix to pull off two big wins over quality opponents in the final inning. And, again, thinking positively: The bullpen was on the hook for both losses. That is projected to be one of the strengths of the team this year. It bounced back after a rough early start last season, and now they have Rob Childress back in the dugout leading things.

We'll see how they look next week when the Huskers hit a four-game road set against Grand Canyon (Thursday-Sunday) in Phoenix.

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>> Nebraska's softball program was hit with quite possibly the biggest blow of any team in America to start the year when superstar Jordy Bahl went down with her ACL injury less than three innings into the season.

The Huskers proceeded to drop back-to-back games against teams now ranked in the top 10 nationally (No. 5 Washington and No. 10 Duke) and just barely got past Utah Valley in their fourth game before traveling back home to deal with the official news of Bahl's injury.

Despite some disappointment and devastation, though, Rhonda Revelle's group has picked itself up and got back to business this weekend.

The Huskers (6-3) won four of their matchups in a run of five games in three days over the weekend at the Troy Cox Classic in Las Cruces, New Mexico. After dropping the opener against host school New Mexico State in Game 1 on Friday, a 3-0 shutout loss, Nebraska bounced back to split the doubleheader, capturing a 4-1 victory that gave Revelle her 1,100th win as Nebraska's head coach in her 32nd year at her alma mater.

On Saturday, the team showed some grit to rally from deficits in both games against Montana and Sacramento State.

The Huskers trailed by three runs early after Montana exploded to a 4-1 start after the first inning. But Nebraska had some explosiveness of its own, pouring it on in a 13-run fourth inning with 10 hits (including six doubles and a home run) as it sent 17 batters to the plate.

The end result was a season high in hits (16), runs (15) and extra-base hits (8). All 10 Huskers who had an at-bat recorded at least one hit, six produced a multi-hit game, nine Huskers scored at least one run, and eight players had at least one RBI.

In the second game, the Huskers rallied from a two-run deficit after Sacramento State pushed across one run in each of the first two innings. Nebraska scored five runs over the third, fourth and fifth innings to take a 5-2 lead entering the sixth.

The Hornets answered with one run in each of the final two frames, but Emmerson Cope earned her second save in three games by recording the final two outs.

Nebraska finished out the invitational with an 8-3 win over Sacramento State on Sunday. It was the Huskers' fourth straight win – all of which came via comeback fashion – and they have now won six of their last seven after the 0-2 start.

In the finale to the weekend road swing, Sydney Gray led the way by powering a pair of three-run homers, including the go-ahead bomb in the fifth inning and some insurance in the seventh. Gray tied her career high in a game with the two home runs and set a career high with six RBIs. She drove in 10 runs across the five weekend games.

Nebraska's pitching staff, meanwhile, posted a 1.75 ERA over five games on the weekend.

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