NU comes alive in second game

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BY CURT McKEEVER

More than the occasional drizzle that fell at Haymarket Park on Sunday afternoon, Kansas was threatening to drench the Nebraska baseball team.

Fortunately for the Huskers, they brought their "rain" gear.

Having been dumped on by the top-hitting team in the Big 12 Conference while losing the opening game of a doubleheader 12-9, NU found itself down 2-0 and needing a comeback to avoid dropping its first-ever Big 12 Conference series at Haymarket Park.

The 17th-ranked Huskers' response was a barrage in which they scored 10 unanswered runs to produce a 13-3 win in a game shortened to seven innings because of the league's run rule.

"When you realize you just got spanked by KU at home, if that doesn't get you fired up nothing will," said Nebraska catcher John Grose, who went 2-for-4, drove in two runs and scored twice in the series finale. "That kind of woke us up."

While having an eight-game winning streak snapped in the opener, Husker relievers gave up their first runs in nearly 22 innings and the NU defense showed a human side by committing its first error in seven games.

The Jayhawks, courtesy of Matt Tribble's two-run double with two outs in the first, took a 2-0 lead into the bottom of the third of the nightcap before Nebraska came out of its snooze.

That's when Alex Gordon launched a game-tying homer that the wind helped push over the 400-foot sign in right center. Two pitches later, Jake Mullinax took the wind out of the equation by smashing an opposite-field solo shot off Millard North graduate Mike Zagurski that landed below the scoreboard beyond right field. It was the senior's second blast of the day.

Kansas came back to tie the game on Ryan Baty's fourth-inning leadoff homer, but right-handed sophomore Phil Shirek allowed just three more hits and the Huskers benefited from an error by KU third baseman Travis Metcalf en route to posting a five-run fifth that left them in control.

"We're down 2-0, it was like 'Whoa, we'd better get with it,'" said Grose, who went 6-for-12 in the series to raise his batting average from .128 to .203. "There was a sense of urgency."

Shirek definitely pitched that way during most of his complete-game effort that included a career-high 10 strikeouts and left him with a 4-0 record.

"They were hitting off-speed pitches that I wasn't getting out of the zone enough, early," Shirek said. "Then, I just went after them. My fastball was a little more lively."

The Minot, N.D., native, who once set an American Legion national tournament record with 20 strikeouts in a game, hit 94 mph Sunday.

"We came in with the idea we were good enough to win the series," said Kansas coach Ritch Price, whose club (22-11-1, 1-2 Big 12) lost Friday's opener 3-2. "To Nebraska's credit, their guy shut us down after we got to him."

Meanwhile, after the fourth inning of Sunday's opener, NU outscored the Jayhawks 19-3. And after KU had pulled even in game two, the Huskers produced eight of their 11 hits.

Freshman Braden Keith, who entered the game in the top of the fifth inning because of an injury to Jesse Boyer, started Nebraska's rally in the fifth with a leadoff single. He moved to second on Colin Shockey's second sacrifice of the game, and took third on a wild pitch.

After Zagurski hit Daniel Bruce with a pitch and walked Gordon, the Jayhawks went to Omaha Westside grad Chris Smart, who induced Mullinax to hit a grounder to third. However, Metcalf made an errant throw home that pulled catcher Sean Richardson off the plate and let Keith score. Smart threw a wild pitch on a 1-2 delivery to Joe Simokaitis that brought in another run.

Grose followed by pulling a 1-2 pitch into left for a two-run single, After Beau Sullivan singled, Chad Steele doubled to left to make it 8-3.

Nebraska added a run in the sixth before finishing off Kansas with a four-run seventh that ended on Keith's first homer, a two-run shot to right.

"We played four bad innings that cost us a game. Other than that, we did a good job," said NU coach Mike Anderson, whose club is now 16-5 overall and 2-1 in the league.

While disappointed not to sweep the series, Anderson said things could have ended up worse than they did.

"It's 2-0 and all of a sudden you could look around and go 'Uh-oh, here we go again,'" he said. "But we didn't get discouraged."

That would've been easy to do after the way Sunday started.

The Jayhawks set the tone in the opener by scoring three first-inning runs off All-Big 12 right-hander Quinton Robertson, who lasted 31/3 innings in his last start against Boston College and was pulled Sunday with two outs in the third. Richardson's fourth homer made it 2-0, and two pitches later Baty sent a 1-0 delivery over the right-field wall.

Kansas put up five more runs in the third to go ahead 8-1, then added another four in the fourth to increase its lead at 12-2. No. 8 hitter Andy Scholl delivered the bulk of the damage, getting a two-run double off Tim Schoeninger in the third and a two-run single off Brad Furnish in the fourth.

Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@;journalstar.com.