Will Bolt on Nebraska's 2024 team: 'These guys are winners'

Nebraska baseball’s 2024 season is officially over after the Cornhuskers came up short in the Stillwater Regional, losing their final game to the Florida Gators 17-11. But before heading into the off-season, head coach Will Bolt took a moment to reflect on the season.

“These guys are winners; that’s what I told them,” Bolt said in the postgame presser. “They won in every area of their lives this year. In the classroom [with] one of the highest team GPAs we’ve ever had in Nebraska. They punched the clock every single day with everything that they do, and we won a championship the hard way. When a lot of people counted us out and said we couldn’t do it, we went ahead and did it anyway.

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“We fell short of where we wanted to end up. I felt like we had a team strong enough to play into next week. But if you look at across the country, everybody’s good, and there’s a lot of teams that hosted regionals that are no longer playing; a lot of really good teams that aren’t gonna get to win their last game.”

Nebraska put together an impressive 2024 season, which included the Cornhuskers capturing the Big Ten conference tournament title. Nebraska was in the running for the regular season title as well but was narrowly edged out by Illinois in the end. The Cornhuskers finished the year with a 40-22 record and were 16-8 in the Big Ten this year.

One of the reasons for Nebraska’s success was their offense. The Cornhuskers didn’t bludgeon their opponents to death with the home run ball, but their hitters knew how to hit for contact and get on base. The Cornhuskers finished the year with six players with a batting average of plus .307. Nebraska was also exceptional at stealing bases with 95 stolen bases on the season. Centerfielder Riley Sylvia led the team installing bases with 32.

As Bolt continued he would reveal his level of satisfaction with the overall results of the 2024 campaign and the trajectory of the program.

“So, am I thankful and happy about the team that we had? Absolutely,” said Bolt. “I’m proud of them in every single way, and the season was a success. Because these guys are gonna leave — the guys that are seniors, are out of eligibility, and have a chance to get drafted — they’re gonna leave our program in a better place than they found it, that’s for sure.”

“So for that, I’m really, really proud of them.”

In the end, only one program can be named College World Series national champions. This year wasn’t Bolt and Nebraska’s year. However, the program had a year that their skipper could tip his hat to.

Bolt and the program took steps in the right direction this season and have something to build off of for the 2025 season