LINCOLN, Neb. – Down 5-0 after four innings, the Rutgers baseball (16-13) bullpen held No. 19 Nebraska (20-9) scoreless from there to allow the offense to rally late in a 6-5 series-clinching victory Saturday at Hawks Field. The Scarlet Knights won their fourth-straight road game against a ranked opponent and improved to a season-best three games over .500.
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"We didn't play well at the beginning and they didn't miss anything that was left over the plate," head coach
Steve Owens said. "We got one run back in the fifth to give us some life and our guys played hard for the rest of the game, kept grinding. Then we got some momentum going and our bullpen did a great job. It was a tremendous team win. We got positive contributions from many players."
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The Cornhuskers, first in the Big Ten standings, jumped out with three homers in the first four innings, as RU went to the bullpen down five.
Justin Sinibaldi appeared first and went 2.1 scoreless in the middle innings.
Parker Scott then worked around the leadoff man on base twice to post two zeroes and earned his first collegiate win. Then with the lead in the ninth, Nebraska put the tying run at third with one out, but
Nate McLain induced a lineout and foul out to record his third save. The three Rutgers relievers permitted just three hits in the 5.1 shutout innings, as NU stranded 13 runners on base in the game.
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Offensively,
Kevin Welsh produced an RBI double in the fifth to put RU on the board and later tied the game in the eighth off Nebraska closer Spencer Schwellenbach, who had not allowed a run in 14 innings pitched this season entering the day.
Josh Rodriguez connected for a pinch-hit two-run homer in the seventh and
Mike Nyisztor immediately followed with a solo shot to make it a one-run game. Nyisztor, who went 3-for-5, started the ninth with a single and scored on a two-out, two-strike single the other way by
Evan Sleight that proved to the difference.
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Rutgers has scored 12 runs from the seventh inning on so far in the series. In addition, the team is now 11-6 on the road with wins in six of the last seven.
- B1 | Joe Acker hit a leadoff homer for Nebraska.
- B2 | The Cornhuskers added two runs to take a 3-0 lead. Luke Roskam connected for a solo homer and Jaxon Hallmark delivered an RBI single. Ryan Lasko threw out a runner at home to prevent another from crossing.
- B4 | Schwellenbach lifted a two-out, two-run homer to put the home team up five.
- T5 | Danny DiGeorgio ripped a one-out single and scored one batter later on an RBI double to right-center by Welsh.
- T7 | Welsh worked a leadoff walk and came around on Rodriguez's fourth homer of the season. Nyisztor followed with a solo shot to make it back-to-back homers and a 5-4 game.
- T8 | Chris Brito drew a one-out walk and advanced to second on a single by DiGeorgio. Welsh then hit an RBI single to left to tie the game.
- T9 | Nyisztor singled to start the inning and moved up on a sacrifice bunt by Richie Schiekofer. Following a foul out, Sleight fell behind 0-2 before slashing a go-ahead RBI single to left field.
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The series finale is Sunday at 1 p.m. ET. Watch on Big Ten Network+ or listen on ScarletKnights.com.
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