Husker baseball stuns Sioux with 11-10 comeback victory

The Nebraska Cornhuskers, left for dead by most of the 2,638 fans in attendance at Haymarket Park on Tuesday, battled their way back from a 10-0 deficit to stun the North Dakota Fighting Sioux 11-10 when Tyler Farst drove the ball back up the middle and scored Adam Bailey for a walk-off single.

Nebraska was down 10-9 entering the ninth inning but tied it up after a grueling 13-pitch at-bat by Bailey that resulted in a double to left-center and scored pinch-runner Khiry Cooper.

Bailey said he shortened his swing and made himself sit on the fast ball after realizing he was trying too hard to end the game on a home run.

During the long at-bat that featured five foul balls, Farst stood on deck developing his timing for North Dakota reliever Kris Kwak.

"Bailey had a great at-bat," Farst said. "That was the key to the game. Him getting up there and seeing so many pitches and fouling them off let me on deck see even more pitches. I think anytime you are on deck, that's kind of where you get your timing down."

Farst didn't let his earlier struggles concern him when he stepped into the batter's box. The first baseman had already left three runners on base after striking out with the bases loaded in the sixth.

"You can't take your previous at-bat to your next at-bat," Farst said. "You have to completely erase that memory and move on."

Farst added that the only thing on his mind was to look for a high inside fastball, but the senior was rewarded with something else.

"I was just up there looking for fastballs and I knew he was going to try and throw me in, but he left that one over the plate a bit," Farst said.

The Huskers completed the comeback scoring in five of the last six innings of the game, but it was a rough start that left Nebraska playing from behind early. Starter Sean Yost yielded four runs in the second inning after an uneventful first. Yost had allowed two base runners when Sioux second baseman Jabby Bakhit plated the games first two runs with a deep double to left field. The very next batter, Josh Lagein, homered deep to left and scored him and Bakhit.

Yost, pulled after two innings, was followed by reliever Kurt Giller. The freshman also struggled to retire the Sioux and was chased in the fourth inning. Giller's replacement, Chase Adams, didn't fare much better in the inning when he allowed a base clearing double to Andrew Gudmunson that pushed the score up to 10-0.

After allowing those runs, Adams (2-0) was nearly untouchable and went on to pitch out the final 5 2/3 innings of the game, finishing to earn the win.

A combination of Adams' stellar pitching and an awakening of the bats kept Nebraska in the game, head coach Mike Anderson said.

"I'm thrilled they came back and figured out a way to win," Anderson said.

At the plate, Nebraska slowly began their comeback effort when Bailey hit his ninth homer of the year, off the left-field foul pole against Sioux starter David Lind. The Huskers scored another in the fourth when Chad Christensen singled up the middle and plated Cody Asche. But Nebraska's rally stalled when Sioux left fielder Josh Ray snared a sinking line drive off the bat of Cody Burleson with two on.

The Huskers refused to go quietly in the night, though, putting two more runners on in the fifth inning. But a strike out from Farst and ground out by Cody Asche ended the threat.