SURPRISE, Arizona — Mojo Hagge drove in the go-ahead run in the top of the 10th inning to give Nebraska its first lead and help secure a 4-2 win over Utah at Surprise Stadium on Friday night.
Hagge — an Omaha Skutt grad off to a 1-for-20 start and moved down to the No. 8 spot in the lineup — sent a 2-2 pitch up the middle with one out to chase home freshman Jaxon Hallmark from second base. Brison Cronenbold added an insurance RBI single as part of his three-hit night at the Big Ten/Pac-12 Challenge.
Redshirt freshman Paul Tillotson picked up the victory with three scoreless innings (one hit, one walk on 32 pitches) and Jake Hohensee picked up his second save with a 1-2-3 bottom of the 10th. Both results were key for a bullpen short five arms because of injuries and one day after using six pitchers in a 9-1 loss to second-ranked Oregon State.
Utah (0-5) entered the day tied for 254th nationally in scoring (2.3 runs per game) and stranded a pair of runners in three of the first four innings against NU starter Luis Alvarado, taking the lead on two separate occasions. Two singles and a walk set up Oliver Dunn’s sacrifice fly in the bottom of the first. In the fourth, No. 9 hitter Matt Richardson’s RBI single followed a base knock to left and a hit batsman.
“Just through (batting practice) and stuff, I was a little concerned, quite honestly,” Nebraska coach Darin Erstad said of the team during his postgame radio interview. “And Luis, it didn’t look like he was going to last very long with how his stuff was up there. It just didn’t look like he had the same explosion on his fastball and was working from behind in the count.
“But, boy, he dug down and found a way to get to the sixth and that’s pretty impressive. So just a real gutsy effort on a night where we weren’t really clicking on all cylinders.”
Alvarado lasted a career-long six innings in his second collegiate start, giving up six hits and two walks while striking out five on 90 pitches.
The Huskers (4-2) scored a run in the second when Hagge walked, Cronenbold beat out an infield single and Joe Acker — in the leadoff spot after Angelo Altavilla fouled a ball off his leg and exited the game in the first inning — produced a scoring grounder into left.
But Utah left-handed starter Kyle Robeniol, who threw 58 pitches the first two innings while allowing six Nebraska baserunners, settled in to retire 10 straight batters and went the rest of his five innings unscathed (three hits, four walks, five strikeouts on 99 pitches).
Nebraska didn’t get another hit until the seventh, when Cronenbold earned another infield single. Alex Henwood followed with a walk and Scott Schreiber tied the game 2-2 by lining a 1-1 offering into right-center for an RBI hit.
Nebraska nearly took its first lead in the top of the eighth but left a pair in scoring position for a second straight inning. Luke Roskam (single) and Jaxon Hallmark (bunt hit) moved up on a sacrifice bunt with one away, but Cronenbold and Acker grounded out to keep the score deadlocked.
The Huskers were 9 of 54 (.167) with runners in scoring position through their first five games before going 4 of 13 (.308) Friday. After Altavilla’s departure — Erstad said after the game that the junior infielder had to go to the hospital — at least six hitters saw key at-bats with relatively little Division I experience.
“I saw some guys grinding,” Erstad said. “You gotta be a little patient with some of these guys in getting them comfortable in a college setting. … It’s just gonna be one of those things where you give guys opportunities and see who makes the most of it.”
Utah reliever Josh Tedeschi absorbed the loss, giving up three runs (two earned) in 4 1/3 innings.
NU will meet Oregon State (6-0) on Saturday at 5 p.m. before a rematch with Utah at 2 p.m. Sunday to close the weekend.
