Series Preview: Penn State Baseball vs. Nebraska
There’s going to be a tough challenge up ahead for the Penn State baseball team this week as they return to Medlar Field. The Nittany Lions will face the top team in the Big Ten the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
For Penn State, the matchup comes following a trip to East Lansing where the Nittany Lions were part of a three team pod last weekend.
First they played in a two game doubleheader against the host of the pod, the Michigan State Spartans. Bailey Dees was hit hard early for Penn State and the Nittany Lions couldn’t recover despite the first homer of the year for Curtis Robison. The Nittany Lions would lose 7-4.
The second game was much better for the Nittany Lions as Matt Wood homered in the middle of a four run first inning to propel Penn State to a 7-3 win.
Following the split, the Nittany Lions faced the Purdue Boilermakers the following day to start a two game series. The Nittany Lions picked up where they left off in the opening game.
Kyle Virbitsky pitched a beauty and was two outs away from a complete game shutout. Matt Wood and Kris Kremer went deep to lead the Nittany Lions to a 11-0 win.
They could not pull off the sweep however as the Boilermakers came back from a 4-3 deficit in the sixth inning to get the 8-5 win and record a series split.
Now the Nittany Lions will face a Nebraska squad that is coming into the series with a 15-6 record on the season. The Cornhuskers are coming off a series win against Maryland and have not lost a series all season long.
Against Maryland, the Cornhuskers took advantage of a three run fifth inning to win the opening game 6-2.
The middle game featured the only Nebraska loss in the series. That came when the Terrapins came back from a 5-1 deficit in the fifth to secure a 10-7 win.
The rubber match was a complete blowout, however. Brice Matthews homered in the game and would record five RBI’s on the day to help lead the Cornhuskers to a 14-3 dominating win.
The Nittany Lions will be up for a tough task in this three game series. The team has been competitive all year long winning games against several teams slightly better than them in the standings such as Michigan and Rutgers.
The Cornhuskers are a different beast however and since they are coming into this series having just destroyed Maryland. This series should be a fun one to watch.
Logan Bourandas is a sophomore majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email lxb5412@psu.edu.
