#5 HUSKERS SOFTBALL – Bring the Winter Gear: Minnesota Preview, How To Watch/Listen & More

Andy Ketterson

Husker Heat – click the link above to check out this week’s show and join us next Tuesday!

MINNESOTA WEEKEND – THINGS TO LOOK FOR:

• Minnesota is #146 in the NCAA RPI rankings. Anything but a sweep would be really not great. And even a sweep will have negative repercussions for the Huskers inn in this ranking, but hopefully not too badly this late in the season.
• Fire and focus must be maintained – hopefully, the team took note of the scare the Gophers gave to #19 Washington in their first game last weekend as they cut an early 5-run Huskies lead to 7-6 late, before losing 8-6.
• Gopher ace Sidney Schwarz, who will likely start two games, is a solid starter and the reason they don’t end up on the wrong end of too many lopsided scores. Coach Rhonda Revelle would probably like to give Hannah Camenzind or Kylee Magee a start Sunday, but it probably wouldn’t be advisable if Schwarz is on the flat hill. She might want to try that Saturday?
• All three games are expected to be chilly to downright cold with wind chill, promising strong-ish winds coming out of the northwest. This could hold scoring down some.
• That should still be advantage Huskers as Minnesota’s lineup has been very weak up to this point.
• Anyone making the trip? Bring your warm gear – check the forecast below.

HUSKER GAME INFO

Schedule: (All times CST)

April 17 – @ Minnesota 3 p.m.
April 18 – @ Minnesota 1 p.m.
April 19 – @ Minnesota 12 p.m.

Location: Jane Sage Cowles Stadium, Minneapolis, MN

Surface: Dirt infield, synthetic turf outfield

TV/Streaming: All games will stream on the B1G+ app.

Radio: Huskers Radio Network. You can listen for free at Husker Audio – University of Nebraska – Official Athletics Website huskers.com – Nate Rohr is on the call for the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

**Weather:**Friday’s game, which was moved up to 3pm, will be overcast & cool with temps around 50 to start, dropping a few degrees with sunset, and winds from the NW of 15-25mph. Saturday will be partly cloudy with temps in the low 40’s and WNW winds of 15-25mph. Sunday looks to be partly sunny as well with temps around 40-45 and winds at 10-15mph. Folks, bring the hot chocolate and whatever you wish to enhance it with.

THE OPPONENT

Minnesota (14-27, 6-9 Big Ten 10th – 3-way tie)

Minnesota is 14-27 on the season with a 6-9 mark in Big Ten play, placing them at 10th in the conference standings. The only common opponent that Nebraska and Minnesota have is Washington — the Huskers are 1-1 against UW, while the Gophers are 0-3. Head Coach Piper Ritter is in her sixth season at Minnesota and in her career as a head coach. She has compiled a record of 158-140-1.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Maggie Werner leads the Gopher offense with a .340 average, which includes five doubles and five home runs. Tara Wolocko bats .279 with eight doubles and six homers, along with a team-high 21 RBIs.

Sydney Schwartz has taken on a majority of the Gophers’ innings at 115.2. She is 10-11 on the season with a 3.03 ERA, 109 strikeouts and 43 walks. Tecumseh, NE native Macy Richardson has thrown 88.0 innings and is 3-9 with a 4.77 ERA.

HUSKERS LINEUPS (Best Guess)

P/1B #98 JORDY FRAHM

CF #23 HANNAH COOR

LF/DP #9 HANNAH CAMENZIND

SS #7 AVA KUSZAK

C #25 JESSE FARRELL

P/DP #99 ALEXIS JENSEN

RF #14 KACIE HOFFMANN

3B #29 SAMANTHA BLAND

1B #3 BELLA BACON (When Jordy pitches)

2B #2 LAURA CAMENZIND

LF #27 NATALIA HILL (defensive only)

STARTERS:
G1: JORDY FRAHM
G2: HANNAH CAMENZIND/KYLEE MAGEE
G3: ALEXIS JENSEN

The lineup last weekend remained unchanged throughout, so I’m going to leave it at that. I wondered if Revelle might try someone else at DP with Jensen slumping for a couple of weekends, but she stood pat and Lex responded.

The rotation could be interesting – with Schwarz possibly going Friday and Sunday, she probably would want Frahm or Jensen going against her in both games, leaving perhaps Saturday as the game to use another starter as I’m pretty sure she will want to against a weaker-hitting opponent and rest her aces. I’ll say Frahm gets the Friday start, since Jensen got it last week – but don’t be surprised if that switches to keep Frahm available to clean up Saturday if that start goes badly.