LINCOLN While the spotlight was on former Nebraska coach Dave Van Horn's return to Haymarket Park for a mid-week series against his Arkansas Razorbacks, Dan Jennings simply stole the show.
Bumped out of the Cornhuskers' starting rotation for last weekend's three-game Big 12 Conference series at Kansas State, Jennings made the most of his demotion. The 6-foot-3 left-hander from West Des Moines, Iowa, pitched a complete-game five-hitter Tuesday as No. 22 Nebraska flashed some power and solid defense in a 6-1 victory over the Razorbacks.
Jennings (2-0) struck out a career-high seven and allowed just one base runner to reach scoring position after the second inning to help Nebraska (15-2) extend its winning streak to 14 games.
"I thought he did a great job and had good composure," Nebraska coach Mike Anderson said of Jennings. "We had to make some decisions last week on some guys with the three starters for the weekend. Dan had an opportunity to be upset by that or be challenged by that and I thought he took the challenge very well."
Jennings received plenty of support thanks to the long ball as Nebraska's Nick Sullivan blasted a two-run homer in the bottom of the second and Mitch Abeita added a three-run shot in the eighth. The Huskers also turned four double plays.
"It does feel good and I really couldn't have done it without that defense," said Jennings, who tossed his first career complete game. "I mean four double plays eight outs that's a third of the outs for the game right there. That makes a tremendous difference."
Van Horn, who was 214-92 in five seasons at Nebraska and guided the Huskers to their first two College World Series berths in 2001 and 2002, had nothing but praise for the pitcher who helped spoil his return, saying Jennings was the difference in the game.
"He's a guy that if he keeps pitching like that, he'll be pitching on the weekend for them," Van Horn said. "The report on him was that he could get a little bit wild, but he really never did.
"From the third inning on, he threw nothing but strikes and out pitch selection was absolutely terrible today. That's what I was the most disappointed with."
Jennings said Van Horn's return had little to do with his motivation. He was just looking to get back on track after a rocky inning of relief (three hits, two earned runs and two walks) last Saturday at Kansas State.
"I've just got to figure out my role like everybody else," Jennings said. "You know there are only three spots in the weekend rotation and we've got four guys, so one person has got to get left out. If that's me, then I'll just go out and do another job."
As the game reached the fifth and sixth innings, Jennings said his focus turned to pitching a complete game.
"I started to think about it a little bit toward the end there," said Jennings, who threw just 107 pitches. "That was a little bit of motivation there for me to want to go the whole distance."
Nebraska took advantage of one of three Arkansas errors to score an unearned run in the first. DJ Belfonte, who had reached when first baseman Aaron Murphree couldn't handle a grounder, later scored on Jake Opitz's sacrifice fly that barely left the infield as Razorbacks' second baseman Ben Tschepikow made the catch drifting away from home plate.
After Arkansas (12-6) tied the score 1-1 in the second when Tim Smalling singled home Murphree, Nebraska displayed a little power. With the wind blowing out to right-center field, Sullivan drilled a liner into deep right-center field off starter Kendall Korbal for his first homer of the season.
Korbal (0-3) was forced into duty just minutes before the game when scheduled starter Mike Bolsinger couldn't pitch due to a combination of illness and arm soreness. The freshman lasted just two innings, allowing three runs one earned on three hits.
Reliever Sam Murphy shut down Nebraska for five innings before giving up a leadoff single to Jake Mort and a double down the right-field line to Opitz. Three pitches later, Abeita took Arkansas reliever Justin Wells deep for a three-run shot, his team-leading fifth home run of the year.
Nebraska finished with nine hits. Mort, Opitz and Sullivan had two hits apiece.
"We put a couple of good swings on a couple of good balls today," Sullivan said. "Luckily, the wind was blowing out and we kind of got them out of here.
"It just kind of shows our approach as hitters, which is to go up there and put a good swing on it and the results will take care of themselves."
Said Anderson: "We'll take home runs whenever we get them, but we're not trying to hit them."
Arkansas (12-6) 010 000 000 1 5 3
Nebraska (15-2) 120 000 03x 6 9 0
W Jennings (2-0). L Korbal (0-3). 2B Nebraska, Opitz (5). HR Nebraska, Sullivan (1), Abeita (5).
[an error occurred while processing this directive]