[Husker] Baseball team sweeps UC Riverside

[Skylar Dodds]

FYI, last weekend the baseball team swept UC Riverside to move to 5-2 on the
year.

Few notes from the season so far:

- In my preview earlier this year, my biggest question mark for this year's
team was the young pitching staff and how they'd have to step up.  Since
giving up 17 to Stanford in the first game of the year, the Huskers have put
together an impressive 1.76 ERA.  It's VERY early, but so far new Husker
pitching coach Eric Newman gets 5 stars.  Dorn's been amazing with a the
lowest starter ERA of 1.38 with 16 Ks in 13 innings.

- The few seniors on this team have really stepped up at the plate.  The top
3 averages on the team are Opitz .417, Nimmo .400, and Abeita .368.
Abeita's importance cannot be overstated (not including his sudden power, 3
homers in 7 games vs 1 homer in 27 games last year).  He's done a great job
working with Newman to help this young staff out and in my mind might be the
MVP so far.

- UC Riverside had a very decent team last year, but is in almost the exact
same position we are with really only 1 returning regular starter on the
pitching staff.  It's not a jaw-dropping sweep, but it's not bad either.

- Stanford (the series we really should have won) just swept perennial power
Cal State Fullerton, good RPI boost

- DJ Belfonte's catch on Friday made Sportscenter's Top 10 plays (#7) and
Sportcenter's Top 10 Plays of the Week (#10).  Probably the best athelete on
the team.

Husker baseball doesn't get a lot of attention this time of year (Omaha's
KFAB wouldn't even broadcast the dang games), so I thought I'd give everyone
some info.

Huskers play two this midweek vs UNK (Tues & Wed both @ 1:35pm) and then a 4
game set with Northern Colorado this weekend (who took 2 of 3 from aTm).

GBR!

--
Skylar

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