Craig Corriston might have supplied the out-of-the-blue power that gave the Nebraska baseball team a 4-2 walk-off victory against Oklahoma at Haymarket Park on Friday.
CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Thursday, March 20, 2008 7:00 pm
Craig Corriston might have supplied the out-of-the-blue power that gave the Nebraska baseball team a 4-2 walk-off victory against Oklahoma at Haymarket Park on Friday.
But ask Mike Anderson how his senior first baseman was able to yank a two-run homer through a stiff wind and beyond the left-field fence with two outs in the ninth inning and he’ll tell you he had an assist.
“If you don’t have faith in your life, you should,” the Husker coach said after watching his 22nd-ranked club improve to 16-3 overall and 4-0 in the Big 12 Conference. “Those things don’t just happen. We’re all blessed, just unbelievably blessed.”
Anderson was referring to a pre-game recognition of Jacob Budler, a 14-year-old from Columbus who passed away last October after a battle with cancer.
Budler loved the game of baseball and especially the Huskers. A year ago Friday, he served as Nebraska’s honorary coach for a game against Western Illinois, so he would have been tickled that more than 30 of his family and friends showed up for Nebraska’s Big 12 home opener.
And, more than likely, the player he would have wanted to come through with a game-winning hit would have been Corriston — who wears the same No. 15 that he did.
“We all remember him. We all went to the funeral. Just a good kid, a good family,” said NU senior pitcher Johnny Dorn, who played catch with Budler before last year’s game. On Friday, Dorn gutted his way into the eighth inning even though he allowed Oklahoma to get the leadoff runner on six times. “That’s crazy how things work out.”
You want strange? The last time Corriston hit a homer was last year against Oklahoma.
“I was trying to go up the middle right there and he gave me a pitch I could do something with,” Corriston said of the 1-0 fastball from freshman right-hander Ryan Duke. “It’s kind of surreal.”
Nick Sullivan had kept Nebraska’s inning going by lining a smash single off first baseman Aaron Baker.
Sullivan had pulled NU into a 2-2 tie with a two-run single off Duke in the seventh. The Huskers loaded the bases against sophomore starter Jeremy Erben on a double by Jake Mort, an error on second baseman Mike Gosse and a walk to Mitch Abeita.
That inning was the first time Nebraska had gotten a runner past second base.
Meanwhile, the Sooners took a 1-0 lead on J.T. Wise’s third-inning sacrifice fly and Aljay Davis’ RBI single in the fifth.
Dorn, who gave up nine hits and walked three, was able to pitch out of a jam in the sixth with a runner at third and none out. Reliever Zach Herr then bailed him out of a leadoff walk in the eighth, and worked around one of his own in the ninth to earn his second win of the season.
“That’s the kind of game that makes you wonder why you didn’t sell insurance for a living,” Oklahoma coach Sunny Golloway said. “When we didn’t score there (in the sixth), I thought that gave them momentum.
“You’re never comfortable in the Big 12 with any lead, and I thought, and I’ve been in this game for 17 years at the Division I level, when you let opportunities get by you, just tell yourself in the sixth, seventh, ‘Oops, that’s going to hurt us.’ And it hurt us.”
Golloway also noted how the Sooners (17-6, 0-1) paid a price for not knocking Dorn out of the game sooner than they did.
“He didn’t have his best stuff, but his experience and his ability to compete was special. With the same stuff, not many guys are getting out of the first inning against any Big 12 team, and he got out of it,” Golloway said. “When you come with your C+ (game) and you help your team win, you’re a special guy. And I mean that nothing but in the most complimentary way. He’s special.”
Dorn shrugged off his contributions to the victory.
“Got lucky here and there, competed out of an inning or two,” he said. “Somehow, we got out of it.”
Anderson has a thought on that.
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.