Poor offense dooms Huskers in 8-1 loss against UC Riverside
Hits were hard to come by for Nebraska (2-1) during its 8-1 loss against UC Riverside (2-1) on Saturday night.
Husker pitcher Nate Fisher’s (0-1) career day wasn’t enough to give Nebraska the win. Fisher recorded career-highs in innings pitched (5.0) and strikeouts (7), but the NU offense wasn’t there to provide support.
“Fisher gave us a great opportunity to win the game, we just didn’t hold up our end offensively,” Erstad said. “He executed some breaking balls down that was really good. I thought he got better as the game went on, so that was encouraging to see”
Slow starts for the offense have been the case so far this weekend as the Huskers. They have a combined two hits through the first three innings of their first three games. Third base-man Angelo Altavilla had a two-out triple in the third inning, but Nebraska couldn’t take advantage of the opportunity.
Fisher retired the first seven batters of the game and looked in control, but back-to-back hits by freshman Nathan Webb and junior catcher Anthony Lepre gave Riverside a 1-0 advantage. It marked the first time that the Huskers have trailed during the 2018 season.
Nebraska had another opportunity in the fifth inning when junior infielder Alex Henwood forced a lead-off walk. He advanced to second on a wild pitch and got to third with one-out, but the Huskers couldn’t get him home.
Meanwhile, Riverside had a double to left-center field to lead-off the bottom of the fifth. Webb used a sac-bunt to advance junior infielder Ian Nowak to third base. Nowak reached home thanks to a sac-fly by Lepre.
Riverside freshman pitcher Cole Percival made his first collegiate start today and he delivered. He finished with eight strikeouts and allowed one hit in his 5.2 IP.
“We had to get him early, we had to get him on the run,” Erstad said. “We started chasing pitches and he settled in and did a really nice job.”
With two-outs in the sixth inning, Percival walked back-to-back NU batters. Percival was replaced by sophomore Connor Cannon. Cannon proceeded to walk Nebraska catcher Jesse Wilkening and hit junior Alex Henwood to put the Huskers on the board.
After Fisher was replaced by junior utility Mike Waldron, UC Riverside responded. Redshirt senior Colby Schultz hit a single to second base and junior Dean Miller hit a RBI double down the left field line. With a man on second, Cannon hit a home-run down the left field line. That gave Riverside a 5-1 advantage.
Things took a darker turn when the lights went out in Tempe. There was a 30-minute delay before they returned to playing ball. After the delay, Altavilla hit a single, but the Husker offense still didn’t show up.
UC Riverside continued their offensive display as junior infielder Justin Mannens, senior infielder Cody Sporrer and Schultz had back-to-back-to-back singles that extended the Riverside lead 6-1.
Husker freshman pitcher Andrew Abrahamowicz made his Nebraska debut, but it wasn’t a memorable one walked the first batter and then gave up a two-run home-run to left field. He did recover and strike out the last two outs of the inning.
This marks the first loss for Nebraska this season. NU was out-hit 11-2 in game two, but the offense never looked organized throughout the day. It seemed apparent that a bit of “northern fatigue”
“I thought we hit a couple balls hard, but we weren’t stringing anything together,” Erstad said.
Nebraska returns to action tomorrow at 1 p.m as they take on Washington State (0-2). Graduate transfer Matt Warren will be making his first career start for the Huskers.
“When we are locking in and really on our pitches and laying off those other pitches, we can be really tough. It’s a work in progress, we’ve seen signs of it, but it’s going to have to get better.”