Senior shortstop Kyle Bubak led a retooled Nebraska offense to seven runs during a two-inning scoring spurt, giving the Cornhuskers an 8-1 win over Nebraska-Kearney in their 2010 home opener on Wednesday.
After three weeks on the road, NU started a five-game home stretch with a show of offensive prowess against UNK. Bubak led NU, going 2-for-2 with a career-high three RBIs, as the Huskers improved to 4-7 on the season. On the mound, three NU freshmen combined for seven scoreless innings, including starter Tyler Niederklein, who earned his first career win.
Bubak said playing in front of a home crowd helped the team come out strong to get the win.
"We approach every game the same way, but it's always nice to have some support," Bubak said. "It brings the intensity up a little bit. We want to please the crowd and get some wins at home."
The performance at the plate was encouraging for a team that has dealt with a high number of strikeouts early in the season. In the first 10 games of the season, the Huskers struck out 10 times per game on average. Against UNK, the Huskers not only scored eight runs, but only four NU batters went down swinging.
Nebraska head coach Mike Anderson said he was impressed with the team's performance this week both in practice and during Wednesday's game.
"I think these past three days have been the best we've had all year," he said. "Two days of practice, then coming out and being tested with the game. We did a better job with two strikes and being aggressive at the beginning of at-bats."
Bubak said the offensive turnaround for the Huskers, especially the low number of strikeouts, was about more than just cleaning up their hitting mechanics.
"I didn't change much mechanically; a lot of it was finding the right mental approach," he said. "Top to bottom – it wasn't just me. We all needed to make a change."
Another bright spot for Nebraska was the performance of its young pitchers. In addition to Niederklein, freshmen Ryan Hander and Luke Bublitz each posted two scoreless innings as the Huskers held UNK to just four hits. Junior Chase Adams also had a strong outing, striking out all three batters he faced.
According to Anderson, the performance is an encouraging sign for the young pitching staff as the season moves forward.
"All three of them did the same type thing today," Anderson said. "Those are exciting outings for those three freshmen. It doesn't matter who we're facing, they did a great job.
"Each of them had something special."
The team is coming off a 10-game road trip that included games against Fresno State and No. 14 UCLA, as well as a three-day tournament hosted by No. 9 Rice. With a tough road schedule waiting in conference action, Anderson said the start to the season will give the Huskers experience to build off of when Big 12 Conference play comes around.
Although the team struggled with their early road schedule, Anderson said the struggles gave the team a good picture of what it needed to improve upon to be successful.
"We've seen enough to know what we're going to be bad at and what we need to improve at," Anderson said. "We know what we can't do if we want to win baseball games. This is a talented team, but we've got to be better than talented."
patradigan@dailynebraskan.com
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