Oregon baseball snaps losing streak with a close win over Nebraska

The Oregon Ducks desperately needed a win, and the Nebraska Cornhuskers or Mother Nature weren't going to stop them.

Losers of three of their last five and not playing well for a while, the Ducks were able to defeat Nebraska 7-6 in the opening game of a three-game weekend set. With the win, Oregon improved to 25-9 overall and 9-4 in Big Ten action. As for Nebraska, it dropped to 26-8 overall and 11-2 in conference action. The last time Nebraska lost a league game was March 20 at Michigan.

Oregon was coming off a disappointing loss at Portland, where the Pilots defeated the Ducks for the second time this season, 13-9. But Oregon had ace pitcher Will Sanford on the mound, and he had a monster game on the mound as he struck out a career-high 12 batters to earn his fifth win of the season.

Despite the good performance from Sanford, the game was tied at 2-2 in the fifth. A two-run home run off of Drew Smith's bat gave the Ducks a 4-2 lead. Then in the sixth inning, Mother Nature showed herself. The game was delayed for over an hour due to lightning in the area. Once that was cleared, the Duck bats got to work once again.

The home team scored three runs in the sixth on back-to-back homers from Brayden Jaksa and Ryan Cooney to make it 7-2. Seemingly a comfortable lead didn't turn out to be so cozy, however. Nebraska rallied with four runs in the eighth to make it 7-6. Oregon had to bring in closer Devin Bell to end the eighth with two on base to preserve the lead.

But in the ninth, the Cornhuskers put together another rally and had runners on second and third with two out. Thankfully for the Ducks' sake, Bell coaxed Jett Buck to fly out to center where Jack Brooks was waiting to secure the third and final out. It was Bell's eighth save of the season.

These two teams will get together for Game 2 of the series at noon, weather permitting. Collin Clarke (5-2, 2.72 ERA) is set to go up against Nebraska's Carson Jasa (6-1, 3.64 ERA).

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This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Oregon baseball is back in the win column with a victory over Nebraska