Weekend Preview: Big Matchup In Big Ten

On the first weekend of Big Ten Conference play last season, Nebraska emphatically swept Michigan. The Cornhuskers never trailed in the series and outscored the Wolverines 25-7 over the course of three days.

Top 25 Series

(1) Miami at Duke

(4) Texas A&M at (2) Mississippi State

(3) Florida at Arkansas

(5) South Carolina at Georgia

(6) Florida State at Wake Forest

Oklahoma at (7) Texas Christian

(8) Mississippi at Alabama

(9) Louisiana State at Missouri

(10) Oregon State at Washington State

Clemson at (11) Louisville

(16) Kentucky at (12) Vanderbilt

Cal State Northridge at (13) UC Santa Barbara

(14) North Carolina at Virginia

San Diego State at (15) Texas Tech

(17) California at Arizona State

UC Irvine at (18) Long Beach State

Western Kentucky at (19) Rice

(20) North Carolina State at Georgia Tech

(21) Florida Atlantic at Marshall

Nebraska at (22) Michigan

(23) South Alabama at Appalachian State

Cincinnati at (24) Tulane

(25) Southern Mississippi at Alabama-Birmingham

But the sweep came with a price, as shortstop Steven Reveles suffered a season-ending injury when he was hit in the hand by a pitch. Coach Darin Erstad said losing Reveles was a “big deal” and Nebraska struggled without its shortstop, going 9-14 in conference play and finishing the season with a disappointing two-and-out performance in the Big Ten Tournament.

Michigan, meanwhile, rebounded from the sweep and went on to win the Big Ten Tournament. The Wolverines rode that momentum into this year, beginning the season as conference favorites.

Nebraska and Michigan will meet again this weekend, as the Huskers (22-11) travel to Ann Arbor to take on the No. 22 Wolverines (22-9).

The Cornhuskers are in first place in the Big Ten with a 7-2 conference mark, but Erstad said they aren’t feeling too good about themselves yet.

“I suppose they’re happy with the record, but we know we haven’t played very good baseball,” Erstad said. “We haven’t pitched super well. We’re not as good defensively as we’re capable of being. We’ve swung the bats ok. There’s still a lot to earn.”

Michigan is 3-2 in Big Ten play after it was swept in a doubleheader last Friday by Minnesota. The final game of the series was cancelled due to inclement weather.

Before routing Eastern Michigan, 19-3, on Wednesday, Michigan had lost four of its last five games, including the doubleheader sweep. The poor week was the Wolverines’ first prolonged slip up of the season.

“We need to get back up and keep fighting,” Bakich said. “We’re getting to the point of the season where have to be as consistent as possible.”

The series will feature some of the best players in the Big Ten. Nebraska center fielder Ryan Boldt has taken a step forward in his development this season, as he has begun to tap into his raw power. Boldt hit three home runs in his first two seasons at Nebraska, but has already hit four homers in 33 games this season. The junior is hitting .344/.392/.517 with 16 stolen bases.

Erstad said Boldt is still just beginning to scratch the surface of his power potential.

“It’s fun to watch,” Erstad said. “He’s starting to learn how to get swings off certain pitches and taking what the pitcher gives you. There’s plenty more in there.”

Reveles has also returned for the Cornhuskers this season and is playing well in his redshirt senior season. He is hitting .304/.357/.461, and has anchored Nebraska’s defense.

“He’s our leader on the field,” Erstad said. “The bigger the moment, the more he loves it.”

Michigan’s lineup features two-way star Carmen Benedetti (.324/.483/.481), but it is third baseman Jake Bivens, the 2015 Big Ten freshman of the year, who is leading the team in hitting. The sophomore is hitting .381/.435/.440 and has stolen six bases.

“He plays hard for the entire game and his intangible skill set is very high,” Bakich said. “He puts his nose in the dirt and gets it done. He’s a catalyst for us as a leadoff hitter, gets on base, uses his speed well and plays good defense at third base.”

It remains early in the Big Ten season, with more than half of the conference schedule still to come. But with two of the conference’s contenders facing off, the weekend will leave an impact on the Big Ten standings. Both teams could also use a prominent series win as they build their NCAA Tournament resumes.

The two teams have played a series every year since Nebraska joined the Big Ten for the 2012 season, and they have largely been closely contested affairs. Bakich is looking forward to another good series this weekend.

“Historically, we’ve had some pretty good battles with Nebraska,” Bakich said. “Outside of last year when they swept us at their place, it’s been a good series.

“I have a lot of respect for coach Erstad and their program. I expect it to be a great challenge for both teams.”

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Lions Doing Some Chasing Again

Southeastern Louisiana coach Matt Riser still thinks back to the hard conversation he had to have with his seniors a year ago, telling them the Lions weren’t getting to go to the NCAA tournament and thanking them for their careers.

As he watched Louisiana-Lafayette play in a super regional two weeks later, Riser felt that could’ve been his team. Last year’s Lions won the Southland Conference’s regular-season title but came up short in the league tournament, and a No. 52 RPI left them out of the picture on Selection Monday. Riser resolved not to let that happen again, beefing up the Lions’ non-conference schedule as much as he could. The Lions are in the midst of a two-week gauntlet—built into the middle of the season by design—with consecutive midweek games against Tulane, South Alabama and Louisiana State, bookending this weekend’s series with those same Ragin’ Cajuns, which opens in Lafayette on Friday before shifting to Southeastern for Saturday and Sunday.

“We felt like we could’ve won a super regional against anybody in the country and gone to Omaha (last year),” he said. “We didn’t get that opportunity, and a lot of people said it was because of the schedule. So, I’m trying to find anybody that’ll play us that’s financially doable for us being a mid-major, so we can get out and get that RPI quality win. Once you get to this point in time, now it’s about competing. We know what type of clubs we’re playing here in the last two weeks.”

The Lions again lead the Southland at 13-2 in league play, although their RPI sits at 61 on WarrenNolan.com as of Thursday morning. The three games with No. 20 ULL followed by next week’s road trip to LSU should it give the bump they’re after. The Cajuns have the RPI to be in the regional hosting discussion, but they’ll need to chase down Sun Belt Conference leader South Alabama first.

“We’re there. Our RPI’s in the 20s,” Cajuns coach Tony Robichaux told reporters earlier this week. “We have to just stay the course and continue to try to handle our deficiencies. One of our deficiencies was playing on the road, and we’re starting to handle that better, so that’s good for us. And we just can’t stray from pitching and defense. We’re not a team that’s going to put up eight, nine, 10 runs a game, so we have to keep the score down.”

Indeed, pitching has been the bedrock of both teams’ success. Both rank in the top 20 nationally in ERA—Southeastern at 2.23 and ULL at 3.05—and have enjoyed tremendous stability in their rotations with the Lions’ trio of Kyle Cedotal (4-3, 1.17), Mac Sceroler (5-2, 2.30) and Domenick Carlini (4-1, 1.40) matched up with the Cajuns’ Gunner Leger (3-2, 2.76), Wyatt Marks (3-3, 4.22) and Nick Lee (5-1, 2.68). The Friday matchup between Leger and Cedotal should especially be a treat, pitting a pair of lefties that have deep repertoires and the know-how to confound hitters.

Southeastern has been the more explosive offensive team, anchored by a potentially daunting middle-of-the-order with Jameson Fisher, Daniel Midyett and Webb Bobo. The Lions score 7.2 runs per game, with Riser building a lineup that can hit for power but also execute the small game when called for. The Cajuns can’t match SLU’s overall firepower but they have gotten a boost from the return of leading hitter Kyle Clement (.381/.435/.476), who missed a month with a broken bone in his forearm after getting hit by a pitch, and they’ve got a dangerous power threat of their own in third baseman Joe Robbins (.331/.414/.619, 8 HR).

“You know they’re going to be able to pitch it,” Riser said. “So we know, offensively, we have to execute. We’ve got to have a lot of quality at-bats strung together. …  We’re confident in our pitching staff and our defense will keep us in the ballgame, so if the offense can score some runs and execute some stuff, we feel like we’ve got a really good shot to win the weekend.”

— Jim Shonerd

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Kentucky head coach Gary Henderson has taken pleasure in the improvements he’s seen from his Wildcats—little jumps week after week. A year after falling just short of an NCAA tournament berth, Henderson’s veteran club has found a way to win every weekend series so far this season, including a series against then-No. 1 Florida two weeks ago.

The No. 16 Wildcats are 22-10 and tied for second in the SEC East with an 8-4 record. But Henderson knows it’s not going to get any easier.

Kentucky has its toughest road test to date at No. 12 Vanderbilt this weekend—and that series is sandwiched between two rivalry games against No. 11 Louisville, the first of which Kentucky lost, 9-6, at home Wednesday.

“It’s going to be really competitive,” Henderson said of the upcoming stretch of games. “It should be exciting. It should be a really big test for our kids—and then you’ve got five more conference weekends.”

The Wildcats are coming off a series win against Alabama in which Kentucky outpitched a very good Crimson Tide pitching staff. Perhaps most importantly, the Wildcats won on a SEC Friday for the first time in 2016, buoyed by a strong seven-inning, two-run start by junior righthander Zack Brown.

Brown has had a down year statistically (2-5, 6.39), but his Alabama start could potentially be a turning point.

“I certainly hope so,” Henderson said. “It wasn’t his first good game, but it was a solid effort by him, really competitive. He did the things that you need to do. He got ahead in the count, he got his secondary pitches over, he threw the fastball down. He did the basics, and he did them pretty well.

“So we certainly hope that’s going to give him the momentum and confidence going forward over the last six weekends.”

Starting pitching was an expected strength for the Wildcats, given the experience they returned. Senior righthander Dustin Beggs has gone 7-0, 2.40 and has been a “stabilizing factor” on Saturdays, Henderson said. The coach added that he’s been impressed with the maturation of fellow senior righthander Kyle Cody, who has turned in three straight quality starts on Sundays against Florida, Tennessee and Alabama. Cody opted to return to school after the Twins drafted him 73rd overall last June.

Offensively, the addition of Gunnar McNeill (.357/.400/.527, five home runs), a transfer from Chipola (Fla.) JC has provided some punch to the lineup. Sophomore first baseman Evan White has also taken an offensive jump (.360/.409/.496) after a quality freshman season a year ago.

“I think when you talk about those guys, to me, they’re both really important,” Henderson said. “They both have had really long hitting streaks at different points in time. They’ve both been steady. Gunnar certainly has been a great addition. Evan’s mature, and he’s a sophomore now and has really been a consistent force at the top of the order.”

Vanderbilt (26-7), meanwhile, is coming off a losing weekend at LSU and is a game behind the Wildcats in the SEC East with a 7-5 record.

The Commodores are getting healthier, though, with the return of junior lefthander John Kilichowski on April 5 and the collegiate debuts of righthander Donny Everett and infielder Julian Infante on Tuesday night. All three could prove valuable to Vanderbilt going forward.

Everett’s debut, in particular, was highly anticipated. The righthander was the top high school player not to sign and the headliner of Vanderbilt’s No. 1 ranked recruiting class.

Everett reportedly touched 97 mph with his first pitch Tuesday in a scoreless one-inning appearance. Head coach Tim Corbin told reporters afterward he was pleased with the way Everett commanded the strike zone. How the Commodores use Everett in the coming weeks is unclear.

“We just have to build him up a little bit first before I think you determine that,” Corbin said Tuesday. “So I think right now in the short duration I think he’d just be more of a bridge, set-up type person when we can find the right time to do it, and I think we have to be smart about when we do it, too.

“. . . I think eventually he has the chance to start for us at some point, whether it’s this year or next year. I don’t know the timetable behind that.”

As of now, Vanderbilt’s weekend rotation stands with junior righthander Jordan Sheffield leading the charge on Fridays and fellow righthanders Kyle Wright and Hayden Stone slotting behind him. Sheffield is coming off a rough start at LSU in which he allowed nine runs (seven earned) in three innings, but in general, he’s been up to the task of replacing former Vanderbilt ace Carson Fulmer, sitting at 4-2, 3.47 on the season.

Dynamic sophomore right fielder Jeren Kendall (.351/.418/.582, six homers) and junior center fielder Bryan Reynolds (.333/.468/.650, eight homers) power the Vanderbilt offense, while freshman Ethan Paul has been undaunted by SEC pitchers, hitting .357 in conference play.

Though the Wildcats pitched well against Alabama, Vanderbilt will be a stiffer challenge. The Commodores lead the SEC in runs scored, setting up what should be a highly competitive SEC East clash.

— Michael Lananna