Creighton University
Nebraska
Big Innings Fuel Nebraska Baseball Past Jays Before 14,650
5/13/2008 8:15:00 PM | Baseball
Abeita, who leads the Huskers in all three triple crown categories, was 3-for-5 with a sacrifice fly on the night to extend his hit streak to 17.
Creighton (33-18) broke up Erik Bird's shutout in the fourth inning with its first hit before being thrown out at home to end the inning. Darin Ruf and Steve Winkelmann walked consecutively with one out. After a Nick Nordgren fly out, Vicente Cafaro's looping liner deflected off the glove of a diving Dan Johnston in left, allowing Ruf to score. Winkelmann, running on contact with two outs, also tried to score but was gunned down when shortstop Andy Cotton retrieved the deflected ball and made a strong throw home to get Winkelmann by two steps.
NU would add two insurance runs in the top of the ninth inning against Jack VanLeur and T.J. Roemmich.
Hellhake threw 4.1 innings, allowing six hits and five runs against a Husker team he shut out for five innings on April 22 in
Bird improved to 5-1 with his second win over the Jays in 20 days. The younger brother of former CU closer Brandon Bird threw five innings of three-hit ball. He struck out three and pitched around four walks in his 75-pitch outing.
Casey Hauptman threw the final four innings of relief to earn his first career save.
Creighton closes the regular-season with a non-conference series against the University of Louisiana at Monroe. That begins Thursday at 7 pm at Rosenblatt Stadium.
NOTES: Creighton had been 18-0 when Vicente Cafaro owned an RBI before tonight ... Robbie Knight extended his hit streak to 11 with a fifth-inning single ... Nebraska won all three regular-season meetings with CU after the Jays won the 2007 series ... Darin Ruf tied a career-high with three strikeouts. All five of his strikeouts since April 16 have been at Rosenblatt Stadium against Nebraska ... This was the first game this year that Creighton did not have either a sacrifice bunt or a hit batsmen. The Jays entered the night ranked in the top five nationally in both categories.
