Mike Gerber (13) and Brennan Murphy (22) do the doublemint twins slide into home plate after Alex Staehely's bases-clearing triple in the decisive 6th inning of CU's win.

If you’re a Creighton fan, this is your opening line:

“Friday night’s game saw Creighton dig an early hole, but score a bevy of late runs  with a lot of timely hits to outlast Dallas Baptist for the win. Guess what? Saturday was more of the same… and then some.”

If you’re a Dallas Baptist fan, this is your opening line:

“Friday night’s game saw Dallas Baptist get out to an early lead, only to see that evaporate in the late innings in a frustrating loss to Creighton. Guess what? Saturday was more of the same… unfortunately.”

The Jesuits are persecuting the Baptists – religiously. At least so far.

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WHAT I SAW AT HORNER BALLPARK.

- DALLAS, Tx.

The Bluejays have used a similar blueprint to win both games, falling into an early deficit before getting their bats molten hot in the latter innings of the game and leave the Patriot bullpen red-faced and winless. With today’s 15-6 clubbing, the Bluejays have taken both of the first two games of this three-game series, with Sunday’s getaway game yet to be played at Horner Ballpark. Will the Patriots rally and salvage a win? Or are the Northern tormentors going to be too much again?

Wish I could hang around to see.

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LINESCORE:

C.U. – 100 007 403 – 15  17  1

DBU – 002 400 000 -  6   7   3

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PITCHERS:

WP: Mark Lukowski, 1-0

LP: Jake Johansen, 0-1

Save: None

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TOP HITTERS:

Creighton:

- Alex Staehely, 3-for-5, 2B, 3RBI

- Reagan Fowler, 3-for-4, HBP, 3RBI

- Brad McKewon, 3-for-5, 2RBI

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Dallas Baptist:

- Michael Miller, 2-for-5, 2B, 3RBI

- R.J. Talamantes, 1-for-3, 3RBI

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RECORDS:

Creighton: 2-0

Dallas Baptist: 0-2

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IN SUMMARY:

Apparently Creighton came down here to the Texas plains totally unafraid to get into a battle of axes. Just when you thought they were dead in the water, trailing by a 6-1 count and facing hard-throwing Idaho native Jake Johansen, the Bluejays simply went on lock-down mode and started to scrap in the batter’s box.

DBU grabbed a 6-1 lead through four innings on the strength of a four-run, two-out rally in that 4th frame. R.J. Talamantes smashed a two-run single and Michael Miller followed with a two-run double. Seemingly, the rout was on against the visitors from the North. At least that’s how a lot of these early season games between teams from different climates tend to go. But the Jays didn’t flinch, freak out or cave in. As soon as Jake Johansen started to show some signs of fatigue in the 6th inning, they pounced on him.

CU started at the top of the lineup and went single, double, reach on an error, RBI single, RBI single, walk and then the big blow, Alex Staehely’s bases-loaded, bases-clearing double. That let the Bluejays tie the game and sent Johansen’s promising day to an early shower… well, earlier than it could’ve been considering how well he was cruising up to that point.

The Bluejays aded two more runs that inning to forge ahead 8-6. Then, sensing the anvil hanging from the Pats necks, they added four more runs in the 7th inning, helping CU to an insurmountable 12-6 lead.

Coach Ed Servais told me this year’s CU squad will have a much more hitting-heavy feel to it than their recent editions. And their experience-heavy batting order has born that out the last two days. The pitching is young and will need some offensive backing. But if these first two days of the season are any indication, don’t leave any Creighton games early. Even against a quality team like Dallas Baptist.

Alex Staehely unleashes on Johansen's pitch to provide the big blow for CU.

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KEY MOMENT:

Staehely’s bases-loaded blast.

Those three runs put the Jays back into contention with a 6-6 tie, but also ended the afternoon for the wildly-talented Jake Johansen.

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KEY MOMENT 2:

After that big 6th inning, Creighton reliever Mark Lukowski showed some nerves of steel in not allowing a leadoff error lead to a big inning. After Mike Wesolowski got to 1st base on a fumbled grounder to Federico Castagnini, the Jays reliever got a strikeout, pop-up and groundout to end any thought of a threat from the Pats.

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KEY STAT:

The 3-thru-5 hitters for DBU, going0-for-11.

When you’ve got talents like Ronnie Mitchell, Boomer Collins and Duncan McAlpine going 0-fer, you’re pretty damn assured it’s not going to be a good day. None of the three were able to get a key hit to save their lives. They’ll be clutch players this year, to be sure, but this was a big reason for DBU’s getting just seven hits.

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GAME BALL GOES TO:

- Alex Staehely.

After starting the two games by going 1-for-7 at the plate and also committing an error on Friday night, the senior SS suddenly turned things around big time. Staehelyput the kibosh on DBU’s early lead with his bases-clearing double, then got another RBI single a couple innings later, helping to cement Creighton’s lead.

Here is what Gerber and Murphy looked like rounding third base. Spencer Allen, who was coaching third, was yelling at them the whole time, "I need BOTH of you to go! I need BOTH of you!" That's Staehely about to catch them in the background.

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NOTES:

- The new digs again.

A few other nick-knacks about DBU’s new stadium I didn’t quite get to in last night’s write-up.

- There are 1, 292 permanent seats in the grandstand and room for a capacity of 2,000… though I think even more could be wedged in for a Regional with some added bleacher stands down the line like UCLA does.

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- There are four suites lining the concourse. One of them is owned by the guy who owns Harley-Davidson of Fort Worth. Here’s a shot of part of the specially-decorated suite he bought.

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- The field dimensions are pretty small.

LF: 330 feet

CF: 390 feet

RF: 330 feet.

There were no home runs hit in the two games I saw but there were a handful that went to the wall or off it. I figure in the blistering months of April, May and June, those big shots will travel out of the yard.

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- As mentioned in yesterday’s column, construction on the stadium began in August. But coach Dan Heefner told me crews were finishing up with some spot painting yesterday morning on opening day. Talk about last minute gussying-up.

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- There are four press areas, including rooms for home and away radio commentators. But if there ever was any kind of post-season Regional played there, a row or so of the grandstand would probably have to be saved for overflow media because the press box itself is pretty small with only room for a couple writers at most… that is, if said writers actually want to sit in a press box instead of getting the true feel of the game down at field level.

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- There are two party pavilions, one down each foul line. The one down the left field line is especially posh with tables and barstools and a flat screen TV mounted on the brick wall.

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- The grass berm beyond left field is really cool. It overlooks the Patriots bullpen and features a giant barbecue grill, picnic tables and a view of the game through an open part of the fence. Here’s a pic:

A bullpen, a giant grill, some tables, big cowboy hats and a cannon. Yep, we're good.

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MY Q&A WITH CREIGHTON COACH ED SERVAIS

Catching up with the coach/teacher/educator of the Creighton Bluejays.

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Me:

First of all, I always want to ask you this early in the year, but what was your preseason like this year? Did you get out on the field a bit or no?

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Coach Servais:

We did. We got lucky weather-wise in Omaha this year. I think we had 10 practices outside, which is unusual, and we even got to scrimmage twice, which is very, very unusual in Omaha. It was important too because we got these pitchers in some live game-like situations to work through. With seven of our top 12 pitchers being freshmen we’ve had to find a way to get through that and get these kids used to what they’re going to see. If there ever was a year where we needed the weather to respond, it was this year with all our youth.

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Me:

What is different about this team compared to last year’s team?

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Coach Servais:

We’ll be a little better of an offensive team. We’ll be a little bit more athletic and better on the basepaths from first to third. There will be a lot of little things that won’t show up in a boxscore, like legging out a grounder. We beat out three or four slow rollers last night. You’re going to see us score a few more runs this year, and with our young guys on the mound we’re going to need to.

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Me:

Does all that youth on the hill kill you?

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Coach Servais:

Well we DO have some young guys that I really like out of the bullpen. I like the potential of how we’ll be able to match up from the fifth inning on because we’ve got more arm strength in these guys, more 89-to-90 miles per hour guys. But we’re going to have to find three starters who can somehow get us to five or six innings. I did like how Nick Musec threw last night (Friday) and we’re going to find out about this freshman, Tommy Strunc, will do for us today. It’s funny, you could even tell in our pregame work yesterday how the demeanor had changed on some of these young guys. The reality was setting in. It got real suddenly. The intensity had changed, but overall they were able to overcome it and settle down a bit. The good thing is we didn’t make a lot of mistakes that you see in a lot of these early games.

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Me:

What did you tell these guys after the big comeback win last night?

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Coach Servais:

I told these guys, look we’re not going to win a championship here in this opening weekend. We’re going to have to keep fighting through adversity all season long. I think (Bryan) Sova showed us last night (after he got a line-drive off his shin) how he overcame some adversity and kept working and got the job done. He set a good example last night by finishing out the game on the mound and fighting through it all.

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Me:

Compare this team to last year. I saw you guys at Sacramento State early on where you guys were crappy, then at the end of they year I saw you guys at UCLA where you were great. Would last year’s team have been able to make a comeback like last night’s win here?

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Coach Servais:

Not early on last year, no. We did not handle the expectations put on us last year. Our guys just thought, “Hey, this will be just like 2011…” and all the sudden they would look around and there was no Trevor Adams or Jimmy Swift or Jonas Dufek and on top of that they were a very low-energy group. And I don’t like low-energy teams. I want them to play with enthusiasm and passion that college athletics is all about. This team did it last night. They’ve been doing it in practice. This year’s team doesn’t have that laid back character.

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Me:

Now, these guys (DBU) are going to be your conference mates next year. Talk about their addition to the Valley and what that means.

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Coach Servais:

Oh it’s going to be a great addition. Great addition. I’ll be honest with you, they play a little different kind of game down here. We’re not used to 11-to-9 games like last night. We’re used to 3-to-2 games that end in two and a half hours. But when you get to the post-season you have to learn to adapt your game to other styles, just like we did yesterday. Dan’s a great guy, this is a beautiful ballpark, the weather will be great, the RPI is going to be fantastic. We’re fortunate to have had that work out in our favor with DBU.

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Me:

What did you talk to your team about in the huddle after the game last night?

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Coach Servais:

I told them I was proud of their effort. Regardless if we had won or not I was proud of their effort. And we talked about “free bases”. It’s something we talk about everyday in practice, not giving up free bases. We held them to six free bases and one of those was an intentional walk and one was an uncontested steal of second base, so we actually held them to four free bases. Now, we got 14 free bases from them. I told our guys, “That’s baseball guys… whoever gets more free bases is usually going to win in baseball.” That’s what it’ll come down to today and on Sunday too. And I just told our guys all about the things we need to get better at.

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Me:

With all the youth on this team, what are your expectations? What is the potential here?

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Coach Servais:

Well, if we can get our pitching squared away, I think we’ve got a good enough offense and our defense will be there – we’re going to work our defense to death as usual. The question will be how quick this pitching can come together and how quick we get those holes filled in the staff. We can go a long way with these guys if we do.

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PICS:

More images from the game.

Jake Johansen lived up to billing early on, throwing hard, like upper 90s hard. And he also had the Creighton batters at bay as the Patriots took a 6-1 lead.

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The Patriot offense was hitting the ground running too. Here, a very fuzzy, out-of-focus Creighton right fielder Brennan Murphy leaps, but can't come up with a fly ball off the wall. DBU's Mike Wesolowski is in sprinter's mode here.

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But the entire complexion of the game changed with staff horse Jake Johansen started to suddenly struggle and was pulled in the 6th inning.

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Boomer Collins has looked nearly in pain as he has struggled in the first two games. You KNOW he's a dangerous bat that is just waiting to explode, but today the Jays pitchers made him look like he didn't even have the bat in his hands.

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The Bluejays coaches got a big kick out of Mark Lukowski, the winning pitcher.

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Ed Servais (far left) claims he is going to work his defense to death to make them another in a long line of top flight defenses for CU.

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AROUND THE COUNTRY.

Here are a few highs and lows from this first Saturday of the season.

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THREE UP.

I had to leave the DBU-Creighton game an inning early so I could fly back to Los Angeles this evening, so forgive me if I missed something really big in this section.

1- Trevor Foss, P, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi

As Aaron Fitt wrote earlier, the dude was “loud.” The Islander stud threw a complete game 3-hitter with 15Ks in the 6-0 win over Pan American. Foss was so spot-on today, he only walked a single batter in the 9-inning affair. What is this?… mid-April? Very impressive.

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2- Pittsburgh

Staring down the specter of moving to the vastly superior ACC in due time, the Panthers have at least gotten off to a good start in the first two days of the 2013 season winning a pair of games at Wichita State, including today’s 10-8 scorefest. For the second straight day, OF Casey Roche was 3-for-5, this time with a home run and a stolen base included.

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3- Ole Miss.

For the second day in a row the Rebels got another good pitching effort and some sound defense as they wore down TCU, this time by a 5-2 score. Ole Miss goes for the sweep on Sunday.

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And a mention to:

- Oklahoma State.

Josh Holliday is already making the Pokes forget about 2012. Two straight wins at New Mexico, including today’s titanic comeback from a 14-6 deficit, have OSU starting off with a slightly raised eyebrow. More on this below.

- St. Joseph’s.

Not sure if any of you have noticed but the perennial sadsacks of the Atlantic 10 have now won the first two meetings of their series at Stetson. Today’s win was a 5-4 white knuckler capped when Hawks closer Jimmy Yacabonis struck out the side in the bottom of the 9th, which was also vs. the middle of the Hatters batting order. St. Joe’s goes for the sweep on Sunday.

- LMU pitcher Trevor Megill.

The 6-foot-8 righty went 7.0 innings today, striking out 11 and giving up just two hits as the Lions edged Utah 1-0. With only one walk given up, Megill sat down 22 of the 25 batters he faced in his 102 pitch effort.

- Virginia Tech pitching.

The Hokies beat CWS alums Kent State 8-1 and then downed a promising UNC-Wilmington team 9-0 (Just one run given up all day?). With the two wins, Tech improves to 3-0 on the season and have also won 21 straight non-conference games.

- Siena.

The Saints took down UCF in Orlando today 7-4. Keep in mind this is a program from upstate New York and its lake-effect snow drifts who came down to DisneyWorld and beat a team many had in their preseason Top 25, including myself. Wow.

- San Diego State.

Tonight’s 4-2 win at San Diego means the Aztecs have won two straight at the new Fowler park on the USD campus and also locked up the weekend series too. Wow.

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THREE DOWN.

The worst part of day number two in the 2013 season.

1- Mother Nature

To answer the question you guys probably have needling you right now, I always give this bitch a hard time because she’s always give us a hard time. I don’t care if she IS all-powerful, Mother Nature needs to be knocked down a rung or two.

Especially after washing out… or rather, snowing out all of our games in the Carolinas today and most of them for tomorrow too. So now we won’t see if Seton Hall can pull the upset at UNC or if Liberty’s Jim Toman can exact some revenge in his old stemming grounds of South Carolina or if Appalachian State can have a winning weekend at North Carolina State after all. Many other matchups were cancelled, including the Ron Fraser Classic being played in Cary, NC, but those were the ones we wanted to see the most.

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2- The Land of DisEnchantment.

Holy El Dorado! Expected good teams New Mexico and New Mexico State are having a crap start so far in 2013. UNM lost a 14-6 lead in getting bested by Oklahoma State 15-14 in 13 innings, the second straight loss to start the season for the team I had ranked No. 23 in the preseason. Meanwhile, the Aggies, who I had picked to win the ever-improved WAC this year, lost two straight games to Wisconsin-Milwaukee, this time by a 13-8 count in game one of today’s doubleheader. NMSU made amends in game two, winning 16-8. The Aggies are 2-2 after two days.

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3- Washington State’s defense

Crickies! The Cougars committed an unforgiving seven errors, which led to 12 unearned runs in their ugly 15-10 loss at Western Carolina in Cullowee. Talk about The Palouse Noose.

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Okay, I’ve barely slept and barely eaten so far this weekend. Luckily my flight back had snack boxes and some whiskey offered. But I’m hitting the hay now. More to come on Sunday.

G’night.