Horn, Huskers Clinch Back-to-Back Titles

Photo Credit: Nebraska Athletics

Sophomore Ty Horn pitched eight scoreless innings to lead Nebraska to back-to-back Big Ten Tournament titles with a 5-0 win over No. 13 UCLA in front of 15,139 fans on Sunday afternoon at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha.
With the win, the Huskers clinched their sixth conference championship in program history and became the first eight seed in Big Ten history to capture the conference tournament title.
Nebraska (32-27) scored five runs on eight hits, while UCLA (42-16) totaled just four hits on the afternoon.
Dylan Carey was 2-for-4 at the plate with an RBI and two doubles. Rhett Stokes had a two-hit afternoon, while Devin Nunez went 1-for-2 with a homer, two RBI and a pair of walks. Riley Silva, Cayden Brumbaugh and Case Sanderson recorded one hit each.
Horn shut out the 13th-ranked Bruins in a career-high eight innings of work. The sophomore allowed just three hits with six strikeouts and three walks to improve to 3-4 on the season. Casey Daiss worked a scoreless ninth inning, striking out a pair and surrendering one hit.
Nebraska broke the scoreless tie with three runs on a trio of hits in the top of the second. Gabe Swansen was plunked to begin the inning, while a single from Sanderson had runners on the corners with no outs for the Big Red. Carey brought home NU’s first run of the afternoon with a first-pitch RBI double down the right-field line.
A passed ball doubled the Huskers’ lead to 2-0, before an RBI single through the right side from Stokes had the Huskers out front 3-0 through two innings.
Carey picked up his second double of the afternoon with a two-out double down the right-field line in the top of the third. Nunez followed Carey’s double by blasting a 1-0 pitch into the NU bullpen in right field for a two-run homer to give Nebraska a five-run advantage.
Horn stranded five UCLA baserunners between the third and seventh innings to keep the Bruins off the board and send a 5-0 game into the eighth inning.
The sophomore worked around a walk in the bottom of the eighth inning before handing the ball off to Daiss for the bottom of the ninth. The Bruins led off the bottom of the ninth with a single up the middle, before the senior retired the next three batters to clinch Nebraska’s 5-0 win on Sunday afternoon.
The Huskers secured the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA Baseball Championship Selection Show is set for tomorrow, May 26, at 11 a.m. on ESPN2.