Transfers find home with Nebraska baseball team

LINCOLN - Craig Corriston is a rough-and-ready Texan. Jeff Tezak has that California coolness. No wonder they love battling for playing time at third base for the Nebraska baseball team.

But what's really driving the two junior college transfers - both of whom look to build on impressive debuts at this weekend's Rice Invitational - is an unabashed gratefulness for having the opportunity to play for the Huskers.

For both, NU represents a third stop since high school.

Corriston - who at last weekend's Texas-Arlington tournament went 4-for-15 with five RBIs while starting three games at third and the other at designated hitter - admits he made a mistake when he turned down an offer to play at NU coming out of Paris, Texas.

“I would've been here behind (Alex) Gordon, but that would've been all right learning behind the best in the country,” Corriston said of the 2005 consensus national player of the year now poised to make the Kansas City Royals in just his second season of professional ball.”

Wanting to play but acknowledging he probably wasn't ready to make big contributions in a major NCAA Division I program, Corriston went to powerhouse San Jacinto College in Houston and hit .300 while helping his team to a runner-up finish at the 2004 National Junior College Athletic Association World Series.

He then suffered a back injury that forced him to take a medical redshirt and, eventually, he wound up back in his hometown playing for Paris Junior College, hitting .375 with 56 RBIs.

When Nebraska called again to gauge his interest, Corriston didn't need to take a recruiting visit. After all, NU volunteer assistant Justin Seely had been one of his coaches at Paris, and Corriston also knew Andrew Brown had played there before earning second-team All-Big 12 Conference honors for the Huskers last season.

“I'm where I want to be,” said Corriston, who marvels at the focus of his new teammates. “Juco, it's kind of different, because everybody's trying to get to the next level. We're focused on one goal here.”

Tezak, who came to Nebraska at the start of the spring semester, finds that approach equally refreshing.

The Poway, Calif., native first went to Cal State Northridge, where he started mostly at second base and hit .317.

“It was probably the best situation for being able to play Division I baseball as a freshman,” he said. “We weren't very good and I got to play good competition. And that was just huge, because it just made it so much easier this time around.”

Tezak, who was the starting DH in two games last weekend and went 3-for-8 in three games, wasn't content at Northridge, though, and left for Palomar (Calif.) College. There, he hit .386 last season to earn junior college All-America honors. Tezak then made plans to attend Santa Clara, but those fell through after he broke his leg playing summer ball.

At that point, with his future clouded, he was all ears when his coach at Palomar told him Nebraska might be interested.

“My last year has just been a roller-coaster ride. I've been three places - four counting summer ball,” Tezak said. “Sometimes, I don't know if you'd say, ‘Meant to be,' but you have a plan for life and things just happen, and all of a sudden you've got to make a new one. Sometimes they just work out and fit, and when I came here I was kind of like, ‘All right.'

“I like it a lot. It's a lot more self-discipline. (The coaches) let us work out on our own, then we come to practice and they watch and instruct. I like that part, where they look at you and help. It's not just like, ‘Do it this way.' They want you to do those things, but it's also like they're trying to make you better, and I didn't feel that at my first school.”

So far, for Tezak and Corriston - who watched sophomore Jake Mort provide the Huskers with a couple of defensive gems at third last weekend - starting over hasn't seemed to be that big of a deal.

Just like their battles.

“The only thing that is tough,” Tezak said, “it's tough to compete against somebody that you enjoy hanging out with.”