Nebraska baseball falls to Florida in season-ending loss at Stillwater Regional

STILLWATER, Oklahoma – Nebraska baseball’s 2024 season came to a close with a 17-11 loss to Florida at the Stillwater Regional on Sunday afternoon.

Head coach Will Bolt and company grabbed an early lead, but couldn’t keep pace with the Gators’ sluggers. Florida totaled 16 hits, seven went for extra bases, and chased Husker starter Jackson Brockett from the game in the second after overcoming an early 4-2 deficit.

Nebraska drew within one after the top of the sixth inning, but the Gators outscored the Huskers 10-5 the rest of the way. Florida scored four or more runs in three innings.

“We poured it all out there though,” Bolt said. “I have no regrets about this game. Obviously we weren’t on the right side of it but we competed our tails off the whole time we were out there. These guys did it together. They’re a championship ball club for a reason and its cause of their heart and toughness and they love each other. I’m very grateful for this 2024 team.”

The Huskers finish the season with a 40-22 record. That’s Nebraska’s most wins since 2014 and the 19th 40-win season in program history. Here’s more on one that got away from the Huskers over the final four innings of the season finale.

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Nebraska slugged its way into an early lead through an inning and a half when Gabe Swansen and Joshua Overbeek bashed a pair of two-out, two-run homers to left and the Huskers took a 4-2 advantage into the bottom of the second.

Florida jumped all over Jackson Brockett.

The bottom third of the Gator opened the inning with a double before slapping two singles to make it 4-3. With two on and one away, Jac Caglianone dug in. It marked the first time this week he had an opportunity to bat with runners on base and he took full advantage. The two-way star mashed his 31st home run of the year to left and put Florida in front 6-4 for the first time.

Failing to hold the Gators off the board was the beginning of the end.

“We didn’t get the shutdown inning,” Bolt said. “That’s what it boiled down to.”

A single to left tacked on another run before Kyle Froehlich was able to stabilize the game for Nebraska and end the second.

Mother Nature took matters into her own hands in the fifth.

With Sanderson at second and two outs, a lightning delay put the game on hold for a little over two hours.

That brought an end to Froehlich’s strong outing in which he did not allow a run over 2 2/3 innings while facing one batter over the minimum. Once the delay crossed the hour mark, Bolt said he regrettably had to go away from Froehlich.

“Just trying to stay loose and keeping the mind sharp and be ready to go but the timer kept on resetting so we didn’t really know,” Overbeek said of how the team passed the time. “When you hear first word of when you’re stretching or when you’re getting loose, you just try to understand what was going on in the game at the time and be able to pick right back up where you left off.”

Nebraska threw the first punch post delay in the sixth. Ben Columbus became the first leadoff batter to reach base for the Huskers and Rhett Stokes’ infield hit put two on with nobody out for Dylan Carey. The Nebraska shortstop promptly ripped his team-leading 18th double of the season into the left-field corner to pull the Huskers within 7-6.

Florida had the answer. The Gators plated four runs on three hits and two errors in the sixth and leading 11-6, the Gators didn’t let up. Florida mashed three home runs in a six-run seventh inning that put the game firmly out of Nebraska’s reach.

The Huskers mustered a rally in the top of the eighth highlighted by Overbeek’s two-RBI single and a Clay Bradford pinch-hit RBI double. Nebraska added two more runs in the ninth off a Stokes RBI double and and a Columbus groundout but the double-digit deficit proved to be too much to overcome.

Overbeek’s four RBIs led the Huskers.

“Looking back on the season, there’s a lot to be proud of but there’s also a lot of work to be done,” Overbeek said. “We’re going to continue to put our head down and come back next year even stronger but to learn from that and just understand where you can be better next time around because we’re going to be back in a regional and we’ll be stronger.”

Putting the Huskers’ 2024 season in perspective

Overbeek is pretty confident in Nebraska’s prospects for 2025 and beyond.

“Looking back on the season, there’s a lot to be proud of but there’s also a lot of work to be done,” Overbeek said. “We’re going to continue to put our head down and come back next year even stronger but to learn from that and just understand where you can be better next time around because we’re going to be back in a regional and we’ll be stronger.”

When it comes to the entire season, its hard to look at what the Huskers produced and see anything but a success. There are shortcomings. Bolt mentioned that he thought his team was capable of advancing beyond this week.

The Huskers skipper said he and the team talked about fun vs. rewarding when the season began 10 months ago. To Bolt, that means not everything someone faces in life will be fun but it will be rewarding if you stay in the fight. That’s a tone he believes his older players set at the beginning of the year and the team carried through to the end.

“These guys are winners, that’s what I told them,” Bolt said. “They won in every area of their lives this year. In the classroom, they had one of the highest GPAs we’ve ever had at Nebraska. They punched the clock every single day with everything 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 do it anyway.”

Gabe Swansen has been through a lot this season. He started the season 1-for-16 and lost his starting job. Then he finished the postseason hitting .500 with six doubles, seven home runs, 16 RBIs and five straight multi-hit games. It’s a run Bolt called one of the best he’s ever seen.

Swansen said he’s unsure of what his future holds. He’s bullish on what lies ahead for the Huskers and said the hard times this year made his finish to the 2024 campaign that much sweeter.

“It makes for a pretty cool story, honestly,” Swansen said. “Facing the challenges early on in the year and being able to respond like that, it’s something I’ll be able to tell for years on years. I’m incredibly proud of what I’ve been able to do this year, sticking with it, my teammates holding me accountable and them always being there for me.”

Bolt knows that Nebraska will return a large portion of its 2024 core next year. The coming days will be focused on building around that group with talent from the portal. Big Ten Pitcher of the Year Brett Sears is out of eligibility and catcher Josh Caron is likely a high draft pick in the upcoming MLB Draft.

Glowing reviews of the player experience from Overbeek and Froehlich represent a solid recruiting pitch as the Huskers look to 2025.

“Being a Nebraska baseball player is such a blessing in itself,” Overbeek said.