A game that started at 11 a.m. and wrapped up just past 7:30 p.m. resulted in a Kansas victory as they swept Kansas State to remain in first place in the Big 12 conference.<\/p>\n
The long delay was well worth it for the Jayhawks, as not only did they keep their three-game lead in the Big 12 conference, but they improved their outlook for hosting an NCAA tournament regional later this season.<\/p>\n
The Wildcats, meanwhile, have now lost seven straight games to their in-state rival dating back to 2024 and could now be sitting outside of the tournament. However, there is plenty of baseball left to play to get back in position, and manager Pete Hughes believes his guys can get there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will play better,\u201d K-State head coach Pete Hughes said. \u201cThere is a lot of baseball left to be played, but we are very grateful to our fan base for showing up this weekend and always.\u201d<\/p>\n
The game started as it did on Friday night, with Kansas scoring runs early and in bunches as they plated four runners in the second inning and jumped out to an early lead. K-State, unlike Friday, was able to answer the Jayhawks this time and did so on a Ty Smolinski grand slam that tied the game in the bottom of the second.<\/p>\n
Kansas, as they did all series long, answered back in the next half inning with a run to regain the lead, but the Wildcats, destined not to be swept, scored two more runs and took the lead 6-5 heading to the fourth inning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Jayhawks again scored to answer K-State and tie the game in the fourth. In the fifth, Kansas scored two more runs to take the lead, 8-6, right before the game was called into a delay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After the storms passed through, the weather cooled down, and so did the bats. Neither team was able to get anything going until the ninth inning when Kansas added an insurance run to make it 9-6.<\/p>\n
A Dee Kennedy single scored a run in the bottom of the ninth and brought the tying run to the plate for the Wildcats. But a strikeout of Austin Haley ended the threat as Kansas completed the sweep dominantly and outplayed K-State in multiple key areas of the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were beat in every phase of the game,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cThey were very good with runners in scoring positions. We struggled in this area. We need to be better in every phase.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Wildcats won\u2019t have to wait long to get a shot at another rival, though. This time, K-State will travel to face a former Big 12 foe, Nebraska, which the team is playing for the third time this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
K-State won the first matchup in Arlington, Texas while the Cornhuskers took the second one at Tointon Family Stadium. The third contest in Lincoln, Neb., will take place Tuesday, April 28, with first pitch at 6 p.m. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A game that started at 11 a.m. and wrapped up just past 7:30 p.m. resulted in a Kansas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[57685,83538,75,84,83,9,24,63,49871,83539],"class_list":{"0":"post-211292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-big-12","9":"tag-dee-kennedy","10":"tag-manhattan","11":"tag-manhattan-headlines","12":"tag-manhattan-news","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-sunflower-showdown","17":"tag-ty-smolinski"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}