2026 WCWS: Briski, Giles lead Alabama to semifinals with win over Nebraska

Jocelyn Briski continues to add to her impressive 2026 campaign. The SEC Pitcher of the Year put together another gem, leading Alabama to the WCWS semifinals with a 5-1 win over Nebraska.

Briski did what she’s done all season, using her rise and dropball mix at a high level. Nebraska seemed to try to hunt the rise early in at-bats in hopes of avoiding the dropball in unfavorable counts. It didn’t seem to matter. The Cornhuskers didn’t have many hard-hit outs and didn’t collect their first hit until the fourth inning, when Hannah Camendzind homered. That ended up being their only hit of the game.

“I think her ability to move the ball to all parts of the zone. Obviously, she can change speeds on top of it,” Camendzind explained about Briski. “She has full confidence in throwing it to all quadrants of the zone that any time in the count she pounds the zone. At my at-bat, she threw pitches all over the place. I was trying to get rid of the ones I didn’t want and try to get something I felt better about hitting hard.

“(It’s about) picking what pitch you can hit hard, trying not to miss when it’s in the zone is the biggest thing. She threw great tonight.”

Briski only had six strikeouts, but the Cornhuskers’ aggressive approach contributed to that. The heavy downballer is more than welcoming to pitching to contact, leading to seven groundballs and eight flyouts on mishits of her riseball. That being said, she struck out the side in the sixth inning.

“She threw 83 pitches, 62 strikes, which I think is pretty good,” Alabama head coach Patrick Murphy said. “She’s been fresh. She looks like she could go forever. It’s just been so fun to watch, especially with the no walks. It’s very difficult to get people out nowadays. I don’t care who it is. But to do it by not walking anybody and only giving up one run in the process is even more amazing.”

Briski’s battery mate, Marlie Giles, continues to do special things in Oklahoma City. The Alabama catcher has only 22 career home runs, yet after Saturday, she has homered in all three of her WCWS trips.

MARLIE MEANS BUSINESS 😤#WCWS x 🎥 ESPN / @AlabamaSB pic.twitter.com/p28ebKUAjh

— NCAA Softball (@NCAASoftball) May 30, 2026

“I’m not doing anything specific, I mean, we plan ahead depending on the pitcher,” Giles said. “Jordy, it was more be aggressive early and be on time with her pitches. That’s what I was trying to do. I got lucky the first one. I hit it.”

Jordy Frahm got off to a rocky start in the circle. She walked Jena Young on a full count and then hit Brooke Wells to open the game. It appeared she might escape the jam after back-to-back strikeouts against Alexis Pupillo and Ana Roman. Giles belted the first pitch she saw from Frahm for a 250-foot home run.

Frahm didn’t allow a run in the second after the Nebraska defense cut down Ambrey Taylor, who was trying to score.

Nebraska inserted freshman Alexis Jensen to start the third, and Alabama struck quickly. Wells drew a leadoff walk and Roman tried moving her over with a bunt. Roman put down a good one, avoided a tag from Frahm, whose throw bounced off the glove of Lauren Camenzind covering first base, moving both runners into scoring position. Giles tacked on a fourth RBI with a sacrifice fly.

The Cornhuskers also had one of their worst defensive days. Jensen rolled the inning-ending groundball off the bat of Kristen White in the fourth, but Ava Kuszak threw it wide of Frahm and White made it to second. Jena Young lined the next pitch into center to bring White home.

Jensen did well in her outing and gained valuable experience in front of the Devon Park crowd. She allowed two unearned runs on two hits with six strikeouts over four innings of work. On the bright side, Jensen got her first WCWS experience, which will be valuable for Nebraska to try and make a losers bracket run.

“(That was) critical,” Nebraska head coach Rhonda Revelle said. “Jordy was already up to 40 pitches. We need to get Lex in there for that very point. We need to get her land legs under her.In that sense, mission accomplished. We kept Jordy’s pitch count down. We didn’t run that up. We got Lex four innings against a really good team in the College World Series.”

Alabama wasn’t without its own blunders. White and Audrey Vandagriff bumped gloves, watching Jesse Farrell’s flyball pop out and hit the ground. White and Young had a similar miscoummincation as Young headed back and dropped a ball that White could’ve potentially had an easier time with. Nevertheless, Nebraska didn’t take advantage of either miscue as both runners were stranded.

Alabama won’t play against until Monday against the winner of UCLA and Texas Tech. Nebraska switches sides of the bracket and returns to play at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday against Texas. The Cornhuskers and Longhorns split their two matchups the first weekend of the series.