Last at-bat run dooms Huskers yet again

COLLEGE STATION, Texas - The Nebraska baseball team's up-and-down 2007 season reached a new stage at Olsen Field here Sunday.

The stage of protest.

The Huskers dropped an 8-7 series-deciding game to 14th-ranked Texas A&M when Darby Brown beat a throw to the plate on Luke Anders' single to right field with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning.

The result of that play - which gave NU its fourth last at-bat loss in six Big 12 Conference defeats - was an even tougher pill to swallow than a second-inning situation that made coach Mike Anderson play the remainder of the contest under protest.

In the second, Nebraska's Jeff Tezak, who was on second base, was hit in the back of the head by a pickoff move from Scott Migl. The force knocked Tezak to the ground a couple feet away from the bag, and as he lie there, second baseman Parker Dalton, who'd gotten the ball from shortstop Brandon Hicks, reached down to tag the Husker junior.

First base umpire Chris Coskey called Tezak out, but the umpires conferred among themselves and with both coaches. According to A&M coach Rob Childress, the ruling was reversed before the umpires sorted things out further and stuck with Coskey's call.

Later, Coskey, citing Rule 6 Section 5, said no one can call timeout after a player is injured when the ball is in play.

While Anderson said he expects nothing to come from his protest to the Big 12, it's hard to say what might have happened had the strange play not occurred.

The Huskers had runners on first and second with no outs, and instead of trying to bunt, Bryce Nimmo hit a grounder for the second out before Mitch Abeita lined out to first.

“It changed the inning, for sure,” Anderson said.

Despite the bad luck, Nebraska twice overcame deficits, the last time in the seventh when Abeita delivered a two-run single to make it 7-6.

But the Aggies got a homer from Kyle Colligan with one out in the seventh, then won it in the ninth.

In that inning, the left-handed hitting Brown had singled off left-handed reliever Zach Herr with one out, and moved up on a two-out wild pitch. Anders, also a lefty, then laced a 2-1 pitch into right that D.J. Belfonte scooped up and fired to the plate.

“If we execute a play, (it's) probably their slowest runner and all we've got to do is throw a strike to home and we didn't do it,” Anderson said. “The throw was way, way, way off.”

It sent the Aggies and most of the 4,060 on hand into a euphoria.

“Every way to lose, I guess,” said Tezak, who felt just as helpless after being hit in the second inning. “I was in complete shock. I guess whatever you've got to (call), you've got to do. I'm not going to try to be running to the base when I just lost feeling in my whole body.”

Sunday's outcome left the Huskers 16-11 on the season and 3-6 in league play. NU, which plays Creighton in Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium Tuesday night, has now gone 1-2 in each of its first three series even though its three-game run total against each has been higher.

“The good news is in this conference, Texas is winning, everybody else is beating each other up, so far,” Anderson said. “I guess on a year that we're going to be 3-6, this is the year to do it.”

Nebraska pitcher Johnny Dorn, who was lifted after allowing six hits and five runs in 4 2/3 innings, maintained the Huskers are far from thinking they're incapable of getting hot.

“I think we're right there. I think everybody knows that,” Dorn said. “We still believe in each other. This is a tough thing that we're going through, but we know we can battle our way out of it, so we've just got to step it up quick.”

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

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