The familiar sights and sounds of baseball are back for Nebraska.<\/p>\n
The Huskers open the 2026 season Friday night at the MLB Desert Classic in Scottsdale, Arizona, beginning a four-game stretch at Major League spring training facilities. Nebraska opens against UConn on Friday, followed by games against Northeastern on Saturday, Grand Canyon on Sunday and Stanford on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the beginning of last year it was more like, \u2018What can I do to help myself out?\u2019 instead of doing anything I can for the team,\u201d Nebraska pitcher Ty Horn said. \u201cI think I kind of figured that out toward the end of last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horn will get the opening-night start as Nebraska begins the season away from home for the second straight year. The Huskers practiced outdoors this week at Haymarket Park with unseasonably warm February temperatures, a welcome change before playing the first three weeks of the season on natural grass.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been over at Gordon Field over at Sandhills, which is a blessing,\u201d Nebraska coach Will Bolt said. \u201cBut to be able to be out here \u2014 we\u2019re going to be playing here in less than a month \u2014 you see the ball fly, the dimensions of our own field, and the fact that we\u2019re going to play on natural surfaces for the first three weeks of the season. Just getting back here, dirt and grass.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bolt said the early practices have allowed the team to settle into game conditions ahead of the season opener.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week looks beautiful. Obviously, today\u2019s a blessing in terms of how warm it is,\u201d Bolt said. \u201cThat part of it, I\u2019m excited to see the chemistry of the entire group playing together come about. These guys are about the right stuff. Their conversations are about the right things, and how they prepare is the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nebraska features several newcomers, including infielder Jett Buck, who said the team is eager to face outside competition after weeks of preseason work.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re ready to go,\u201d Buck said. \u201cWe feel good. We look good. I\u2019m excited to see what we\u2019re able to do on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n
All four games of the Desert Classic will be played at Major League Baseball spring training facilities, giving Nebraska an early-season test against a diverse group of opponents.<\/p>\n
First pitch against UConn is set for Friday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The familiar sights and sounds of baseball are back for Nebraska. The Huskers open the 2026 season Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-459179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}