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The Nebraska baseball team (0-0) will open the 2021 season on Friday with a weekend series against Purdue (0-0). The two teams will head South to Round Rock, Texas where they will play four games over three days, with a doubleheader on Saturday. This series kicks off a 2021 schedule that consists of only conference opponents.
This will be head coach Will Bolt’s first full season as head coach. Bolt’s Huskers are coming off a shortened season in 2020 where they finished 7-8, not getting the chance to play any Big Ten competition before the season was abandoned.
With the season being conference only, every game will count towards the total conference record. Following this series, Nebraska will head to another neutral site in Minneapolis, Minn. where they will alternate playing Ohio State and Iowa each twice.
Probable Starters
Friday, 3:00 p.m.: LHP Cade Povich (0-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. TBD
Saturday, 10:00 a.m. (7 innings): RHP Chance Hroch (0-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. TBD
Saturday, 45 minutes after end of previous game: RHP Shay Shanaman (0-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. TBD
Sunday, 10:00 a.m.: LHP Jake Bunz (0-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. TBD
What to watch for
Transfer Pitchers: Two of the pitchers listed as probable starters this weekend are transfers. Chance Hroch, a senior RHP is a graduate transfer from New Mexico State where he made 56 appearances and started 19 games. Hroch has a career record of 16-4 and a 3.13 ERA. Last season, before it was cut short, Hroch started four games and compiled a record of 2-1 and a 4.68 ERA. His most notable season however was his junior year where he went 10-1 in 15 starts and kept an ERA of 2.74. In that same season, Hroch pitched two complete games and two shutouts.
The other transfer that is projected to start on Sunday is Jake Bunz. The junior LHP transferred from Hutchinson Community College where he appeared in 13 games as a freshman in 2019. Of those 13 games, Bunz started in 10 and finished the season with a record of 8-1 and a 3.48 ERA. In just 54.1 innings pitched, Bunz racked up 81 strikeouts.
Returning offensive talent: Last season, Nebraska had seven players with a .295 batting average or higher. Of those seven players, five are returning this season. Jaxon Hallmark, a returning senior averaged .368 in 38 at-bats. Hallmark appeared in 10 of the 15 games last season, starting all 10. Leighton Banjoff is the next on the list averaging .341 in 44 at-bats in 2020. Banjoff appeared in all 15 games and produced 13 RBI.
The key for the Big Red is filling in the biggest piece they lost, Aaron Palensky. The outfielder was a junior last year, and following the season was signed by the New York Yankees to a minor league contract. Palensky averaged .302 from the plate in 53 at-bats, and led NU in RBIs with 19. He will not be a player easy to replace, but the Huskers will look to fill in his spot with no major drop in talent.
Pushing through uncertainty: With the 2020 season being cut short, and many other Husker athletic teams missing games due to COVID-19, head coach Will Bolt is well aware that this season could be unlike any other. Games may be postponed, rescheduled, or even cancelled, and dealing with that could shake up pitching rotations or who is playing when. Keeping focused on just winning the next game is going to be important to finding success in a weird year like 2021.
Know your opponent
***Purdue went 7-7 last season in the 14 games that they were able to play. The Boilermakers started the season off strong going 6-1, but then lost six straight before winning their last game.
***The Huskers lead the all-time series 12-4 with the last matchup being on April 7, 2019 where the Big Red won 9-5. NU has beat Purdue the last seven matchups, including two series sweeps.
***In the 16 games between the two teams, the largest margin of victory was in the first game of the 2019 series when the Huskers put up 17 runs on the Boilermakers and shut them out to win 17-0.
***In 2019, Purdue finished second to last with a conference record of 7-16. That season they went 20-34 overall.
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