It was the Vicente Cafaro show at Hawks Field Tuesday night.
The Creighton senior was on the base pads all night in the Bluejays’ 15-0 romp of the Cornhuskers.
It is the second time in a week that NU has given up 15 runs in a game, which is the highest opposing team total in Hawks Field history.
Nebraska used nine pitchers in the game and gave up 14 hits and 11 walks.
“We’re going to stay together,” said Nebraska coach Mike Anderson after the game. “It’s obviously not going in the right direction, and we’ve got a lot of things to work on.”
With the loss, Nebraska drops to 16-15-1 and has lost six in a row and eight of its last nine.
After a disappointing three-game sweep at the hands of Kansas State last weekend, Anderson said he hoped things would turn around.
“I thought after the K-State series, we’d get back on track with Creighton,” Anderson said. “At some point, hopefully we’ll hit bottom and bounce back up.”
Cafaro, who’s a Venezuela-native, finished the night 5-for-5 at the plate with three doubles and a walk. He scored five times and had an RBI.
He also dominated NU defensively, starting three double plays at second base and could occasionally be seen pumping his fist in excitement after making plays.
“That’s how I play,” Cafaro said. “There is something special to be in front of all these people at their house. I think everything I did today was at the best of my ability. Sometimes you have those days when you hit the ball well and somebody makes a play. Today was a day when the ball was in every hole I could find.”
Creighton got the offense going in the second inning when Cafaro led off with a single up the middle off NU starter Kash Kalkowski.
T.J. Roemmich then doubled into the right field corner scoring Cafaro all the way from first to give the Bluejays a 1-0 lead.
Cafaro got things going for Creighton again in the fourth with a leadoff double over the center fielder’s head. Jimmy Swift’s single past a diving Ben Kline scored Cafaro to make it 2-0.
Erik Bird relieved Kalkowski later in the inning and inherited a one out, bases loaded jam. He walked Nick Becker to bring in Creighton’s third run of the game, but then escaped the inning with no further damage done.
Creighton manufactured another run in the fifth inning when Cafaro got things started again with a bloop single to left field. He then stole second base and later advanced to third on the catcher’s throwing error before scoring on Roemmich’s sacrifice fly to make it 4-0.
The flood gates opened after that when the Bluejays posted three runs in the seventh inning and eight more in the eighth inning to make it 15-0.
Kalkowski took the loss for NU going 3.1 innings, giving up three runs on five hits.
Nebraska’s offense only managed four hits in the game and never advanced a runner to third base.
NU third baseman Jake Mort said he still thinks the Huskers can salvage something out of this season.
“We never planned on things going this way,” Mort said. “I keep telling the guys that I still feel there’s something special about this team. Something special is going to happen to us, I truly believe it. We’ve just got to keep looking at the positive side of things.”
LUKENICHOLS@DAILYNEBRASKAN.COM
