UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State dropped its second game of the Big Ten Tournament to the Nebraska Cornhuskers by a score of 12-3 on Thursday (May 24) afternoon. With the loss, the Nittany Lions are eliminated from the tournament. Penn State finishes the season 29-27 overall, the program’s second-straight winning season.
Senior Sean Deegan (Readington, N.J.) led the game off with a homerun, his Big Ten leading 12th of the season. After that, it was all Cornhuskers, collecting 18 hits in the victory. Sophomore Steve Snyder (West Chester, Pa.) had three hits, while sophomore Alex Farkes (Boston, Mass.) and junior Luis Montesinos (Miami, Fla.) each had two hits.
Junior Steven Hill (Colleyville, Texas) did hold the Cornhuskers scoreless until the fourth inning. Nebraska’s Pat Kelly singled in Richard Stock, who doubled earlier in the inning, to tie the game up at one. The fourth inning would be the first of four straight innings of run production for Nebraska.
In the top of the fifth inning, the first three Cornhusker batters reached base to load them up. A sacrifice fly, RBI single and infield RBI single gave Nebraska a 4-1 lead. Then in the sixth inning, Nebraska reached base on three-straight bunts to start the inning. That would lead to a five-run sixth inning and a 9-1 lead for the Huskers.
A three-run seventh for Nebraska would bury Penn State’s hopes of a rally. In the bottom of the seventh, a Snyder RBI single would cut the lead to 12-2. The Lions scored another run in the ninth inning of an error, resulting in a 12-3 contest.
A remarkable senior class of Jordan Steranka (Pittsburgh, Pa.), Joey DeBernardis (Lake Zurich, Ill.), Sean Deegan (Readington, N.J.), Ryan Clark (Westerville, Ohio) and Mike Franklin (Harleysville, Pa.) all made an appearance in their final game in the Nittany Lion baseball program.
