Huskers lose final game of series to Okie State

LINCOLN - Oklahoma State baseball coach Frank Anderson, having seen Nebraska shut down his high-powered team on Friday and Saturday, came to Haymarket Park on Sunday prepared for his third outer-body experience of the weekend.

He got it, too. But for a guy who spent 14 seasons as a pitching coach at Texas Tech and Texas before he taking over the Cowboys' program, OSU's 7-5 win wasn't much more fun than his club's losses the previous two days.

“The pitching guy in me, I hate to see anybody do that,” Anderson said, referring to NU starter Zach Herr. The sophomore helped the Cowboys end a 13-game losing streak in Lincoln by walking five batters, hitting another and throwing a wild pitch in an outing that ended with the bases loaded and none out in the second inning. “It's a tough deal, but obviously we'll take it.”

Herr, who was making his first start in 38 appearances for the Huskers, was given a chance to settle down when his teammates answered OSU's two-run first inning by scoring twice in the bottom half.

But when he sandwiched two more walks around a hit batter to start the second, the Huskers had to sense they were going to be up against the wall while trying to earn their first series sweep of the season.

“It kind of bothers you a little bit,” NU first baseman Andrew Brown said of the second-inning scenario. “Because you get the two runs back and all you have to do is fill it up and make them swing it and the whole game could be at a different pace.”

Nebraska did escape the inning giving up just one run, and eventually got that back in the third. But the Cowboys took the lead for good on Rebel Ridling's RBI double with two outs in the fifth.

Ridling, who added a two-run homer off Matt Foust to make it 7-4 in the seventh, said Herr's struggles to get the ball over the plate definitely set the tone to Oklahoma State's approach.

“We're always aggressive, but when you see a guy like that throwing it up and throwing balls, we try not to chase,” he said. “We have been a little uncharacteristic (the previous two days), but the guy was throwing some balls, so we know we can sit in there and make him give us pitch and, if not, take our walks and try and get it to the next guy.”

In the first two games of the series, Nebraska pitching yielded just three walks.

“I don't think he had jitters,” NU coach Mike Anderson said of Herr. “I just think he didn't find it.”

Anderson had opted to give Herr the start because of a die-hard attitude, more than anything. But he would have traded some guts and heart for a little accuracy Sunday.

“The three guys that started this weekend, they spill it all to this program,” Mike Anderson added. “If we're going to win, that's what we're going to win with. If we're going to lose, that's what we're going to lose with.”

Having lost for only the third time in its last 10 games, Nebraska now plays host to Iowa at 6:05 p.m. Tuesday, then plays at Wichita State on Wednesday before continuing to Norman, Okla., for a weekend series against the Sooners.