Nebraska baseball captured its second straight Big Ten Tournament championship with a 5-0 shutout win over No. 14 UCLA Sunday. The tournament title clinches for the Cornhuskers an automatic bid into the NCAA Regionals.
The Huskers rode a sterling pitching performance from Ty Horn (3-4), who threw eight innings of three-hit, shutout ball. He walked three and struck out six in a career long outing. Casey Daiss pitched the ninth, allowing just a hit while striking out two to finish the victory.
Nebraska took control with three runs in the top of the second. Dylan Carey drove in a run with a double to right field to get the Huskers on the board. Later in the inning, Case Sanderson scored on a passed ball. Rhett Stokes drove in Carey with a single to right, pushing the lead to 3-0. Then in the third, Devin Nunez crushed a two-run home run to right, making it 5-0, Huskers.
That was more than enough run support for Horn and Daiss, who made sure those five runs held up. The Bruins’ best scoring threat came in the sixth, when a Mulivai Levu double put runners at second and third with one out. But Horn struck out the next two hitters, Roman Martin and AJ Salgado, and UCLA was denied.
The victory closes a 4-0 week for Nebraska, including two wins over nationally ranked Oregon and UCLA. The Huskers will hear where they’ve been selected to go for regionals Monday at 11 a.m. during the NCAA selection show, which will be televised on ESPN2.