Coulda, woulda, shoulda

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BY CURT McKEEVER

AUSTIN, Texas - Unlike the weather here Saturday, the Nebraska baseball team failed to take an unexpected break from its gloomy appearance.

Leading top-ranked Texas 2-0 thanks to Phil Shirek's one-hit pitching performance through five innings, the Huskers watched wasted opportunities turn into a 4-2 defeat before a Disch-Falk Field crowd of 6,048.

Wasted opportunities, you ask?

How about the four times NU bunted? Each one of them produced negative results.

Then, there were the two times coach Mike Anderson's club failed to score after getting a runner to third base with none out.

"This is a 'should've' game," Anderson said following his 16th-ranked team's seventh loss in nine games that left it 26-12 overall and treading water at 7-7 in the Big 12.

While landing enough jabs to knock right-handed sophomore Sam LeCure from the mound with one out in the fourth inning, Nebraska could never connect a haymaker.

Having gotten its leadoff hitter on in each of the first five innings, Alex Gordon made it 6-for-6 by starting the sixth with a triple off the glove of hard-charging left fielder Carson Kainer. Texas reliever Kyle McCulloch then got Curtis Ledbetter on a called third strike before Jake Mullinax bunted up the first base line.

With Gordon breaking for home on the safety squeeze, McCulloch fielded the ball and fired to catcher Curtis Thigpen, who applied a sweep tag that home plate umpire Larry Donovan ruled came in time to prevent a run.

Gordon, who suffered through the first three-strikeout game of his career, disagreed.

"I was safe," he said. "I took a risk even though it wasn't perfect. I thought we had it."

Added Anderson, "I think that changes the whole scope of what happens."

Texas coach Augie Garrido called it "the play of the game," and, indeed, his team responded to it.

Having been held to an infield single by Shirek through five innings, Drew Stubbs was hit by a pitch to get the Longhorns going in the sixth. He scored on Thigpen's single to right when NU's Daniel Bruce overthrew third, allowing Thigpen to also advance to second.

Nebraska then went to right-handed junior Dusty Timm, who gave up an infield single to Taylor Teagarden. Hunter Harris followed with an RBI single past shortstop before Timm was called for a balk. He came back to retire Kainer on a fly ball to shallow right, but after intentionally walking Chance Wheeless, he walked Seth Johnson on five pitches to force in Texas' third run.

Timm was able to get pinch hitter Dooley Prince to ground into an inning-ending double play, but with All-American Huston Street allowing just an infield single over the last three innings, Texas had produced enough.

"We didn't execute when we had the chance," said Mullinax, who had an RBI triple that made it 2-0 in the fourth, but was left stranded after John Grose and Al Smith struck out and Jesse Boyer lined out. "We had our leadoff guy on the first six innings and got two runs. We've got to get more.

"Phil gave us a chance to win today. We should've won. The small things, every-day things we work on, hurt us."

Nebraska, which scored its first run on Bruce's two-out RBI single in the third, gave up a two-out run in the seventh on Teagarden's double. Street then finished off the Huskers by setting them down in order in the eighth and ninth.

"It's getting frustrating, but we've still got to keep playing," Mullinax said. "We've got a long season left, we've still got things to prove."

Now 41-5 overall (one game behind the 1982 team's 46-game mark), Texas moved into first place in the Big 12 (at 13-3) for the first time this season thanks to Oklahoma's loss to Texas Tech.

The Longhorns also secured their first series win against Nebraska in the last six seasons and will be looking to put the Huskers under .500 this late into league play for the first time since 2000. That year, NU was 7-8 before going 14-1 down the stretch to finish second.

"We're all right," Shirek maintained. "As soon as we think things are going to change, they will. - You can't take that woe-is-me attitude."

Although he realizes he could be sounding more and more like a broken record, Anderson has made it a sticking point to accentuate the positive.

"We've had those stretches where it's gone our way, too," he said. "I truly believe there's a valuable lesson to be learned from all of this. I hope we're sitting here (soon) talking about it. I hope it's this season. I'll tell you what, as a coach I see the light at the end of the tunnel."

Nebraska will send right-handed senior Quinton Robertson (4-4, 4.69 ERA) to face Texas' Justin Simmons (8-1, 3.67) today. The Longhorns will try to become the first team to sweep a series from the Huskers since Baylor did it during the 2000 season.

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