Nebraska baseball returns home Tuesday night to face Creighton at Hawks Field at Haymarket Park in Lincoln, with first pitch set for 6:02 p.m. Pryce Bender will start for the Huskers against Max McClellan, as the in-state rivals meet for the 155th time on the diamond.
Nebraska leads the all-time series 88-64-2 and won the first meeting this season 6-5 at Creighton, a result that extended its run of success at Charles Schwab Field to 11 straight victories dating to the 2024 season. The Huskers entered the week ranked No. 22 in Perfect Game, No. 24 in the NCBWA poll and No. 25 in the /Coaches Top 25.
The matchup comes at a point when Nebraska is still trying to steady itself after a 1-3 week against Kansas and No. 21 Oregon. Even so, the Huskers are 27-9 through 36 games, and that start is tied for fifth-best in the school’s record book this century. Under coach Will Bolt, Nebraska has reached at least 25 wins in the first 36 games twice.
Home has been the constant. Nebraska is in its 25th season at Hawks Field at Haymarket Park and has not had a losing season there in the last 24 years. The Huskers are 455-184-1 in 640 all-time games at the ballpark and are 15-1 there this season, a record that helps explain why Tuesday night matters even without conference stakes attached.
Bender enters the game 0-0 with a 5.09 ERA and 12 strikeouts in 17.2 innings, and Tuesday will be his fourth start of the season. Creighton counters with McClellan, who is 1-0 with a 10.12 ERA, giving the midweek game a familiar feel for both staffs even as Nebraska tries to keep its strong track record in those matchups intact.
The Huskers are 7-1 in midweek games this season and have paired that record with a.314 batting average, 17 doubles, two triples and four home runs. They are scoring 8.1 runs per game in those contests, while the pitching staff has posted a 3.60 ERA, a 2.73 strikeout-to-walk ratio and limited opponents to a.212 average. Mac Moyer and Dylan Carey lead Nebraska with 57 and 56 hits, respectively, and the lineup has already produced wins over No. 7 Auburn, No. 16 Florida State and No. 21 Oregon.
That is the tension around Tuesday night: Nebraska has nine wins against ranked opponents over the last two seasons and has posted multiple 10-game win streaks in the same year for the first time since 2006, but it is also coming off a week in which the results were uneven. Against a rival it has beaten 88 times before, the Huskers get a chance to show whether the rankings still match the team on the field.
The question now is whether Nebraska baseball can turn another home game, and another midweek start, into the kind of result that keeps this season moving forward instead of just surviving it.
