2005 Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball team
| 2005 Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball | |
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Crowne Plaza/Rice Invitational Champions
Big 12 Regular Season Champions Big 12 Tournament Champions |
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College World Series, 5th Place
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| Conference | Big 12 |
| Ranking | |
| Coaches | No. 6 |
| 2005 record | 57-15 (19-8 Big 12) |
| Head coach | Mike Anderson |
| Hitting coach | Andy Sawyers |
| Pitching coach | Rob Childress |
| Home stadium | Hawks Field |
| 2005 Big 12 baseball standings | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Conf | Overall | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Team | W | L | PCT | W | L | PCT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| #6 Nebraska† | 19 | – | 8 | .704 | 57 | – | 15 | .792 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| #4 Baylor | 19 | – | 8 | .704 | 46 | – | 24 | .657 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| #1 Texas | 16 | – | 10 | .615 | 56 | – | 16 | .778 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| #25 Missouri | 16 | – | 11 | .593 | 40 | – | 23 | .635 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Oklahoma | 14 | – | 13 | .519 | 35 | – | 26 | .574 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Oklahoma State | 12 | – | 15 | .444 | 34 | – | 25 | .576 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kansas | 11 | – | 15 | .423 | 36 | – | 28 | .563 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Texas Tech | 9 | – | 16 | .360 | 34 | – | 25 | .576 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Texas A&M | 9 | – | 18 | .333 | 30 | – | 25 | .545 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kansas State | 8 | – | 19 | .296 | 30 | – | 25 | .545 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| † 2005 Big 12 Tournament winner Rankings from NCBWA |
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The 2005 Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball team was Mike Anderson's 3rd year as Head coach. The huskers played their home games at Hawks Field.
Nebraska posted a 36-23 record with 14 of the losses being by two runs or less as they barely missed their first NCAA regional appearance since 1998. However, the Huskers were the only Big 12 team not shut out during the whole season and they established a school record and ranked eighth nationally with a .975 fielding percentage shattering the previous best of .971. A few honors include Big 12 player of the years and first-team All-American third baseman Alex Gordon and All-Big 12 selections Zach Kroenke, Curtis Ledbetter and Joe Simokaitis.
Summary
While the 2005 Nebraska baseball season will be remembered for many things, it was the never-say-die attitude that captured the hearts of Husker fans around the state.
Heading into the final weekend of the season, the Huskers were two games behind Baylor in the conference race. Nebraska won its first two games against Kansas State, while Baylor and Missouri split their first two contests, putting the Huskers in position to earn a share of the league crown. Behind Kroenke's complete-game gem on Senior Day, Nebraska posted a 3-1 victory, while Missouri capped NU's title hopes by beating Baylor in Waco later that day, giving the two teams a share of the Big 12 crown. The two teams would meet one week later with the Big 12 Tournament title on the line. The game was scoreless until the sixth when Andy Gerch's sacrifice fly plated Gordon for the game's only run. Duensing and Jensen combined on a three-hit shutout to give NU a 1-0 win over the Bears and the Huskers’ fourth Big 12 Tourney crown since 1999 and winning the regular-season and tournament titles in the same season for the second time in school history (2001).
Never was the Huskers’ true spirit more evident than on college baseball's grandest stage – the College World Series in Omaha. Trailing 5-3 in the ninth inning, the Huskers were down to their last at-bat, looking to extend the most successful season in school history. As they had done 20 times during the season, Nebraska began to rally, opening the inning with two hits before Alex Gordon's RBI single pulled NU within 5-4. Two batters later, freshman Andy Gerch provided one of the most memorable moments in school history, sending an 0-2 pitch into the left-field bleachers, giving the Huskers a 7-5 lead. Alas, the lead was short-lived, as Arizona State scored twice in the bottom of the ninth – including a game-tying homer by Jeff Larish – before ending one of the most memorable games in recent CWS history two innings later for an 8-7 ASU win.
For Head Coach Mike Anderson, the heart shown by the Huskers was a characteristic that he saw develop throughout the year. "This was a resilient group all year long," Anderson said. "We fought and fought, and it didn’t surprise me at all that we scored those runs in the ninth." While its resiliency allowed the Huskers to never be out of a contest, Anderson credited the team's selflessness as the catalyst for going from eighth to first in the Big 12 and returning to the College World Series for the first time since 2002.
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