There were plenty of possible culprits who stole the fun from Kansas baseball’s senior night.
The event itself is distracting, Kansas coach Bobby Randall admitted after the Jayhawks dropped both games of a doubleheader to Texas-Arlington on Saturday at Hoglund Ballpark.
“There’s a lot going on,” Randall said. “Families are in town, and it’s really a special time for everyone. But that shouldn’t be an excuse. We have to play better baseball.”
Ceremonies aside, the Mavericks were the better team in their 7-5 and 4-3 victories. Nothing particulary fancy was needed to win, except two strong, complete-game outings from their pitchers.
Ben Grundhauser pitched all seven innings of game one and surrendered seven hits and five runs while striking out four. Whao Dill went the distance in game two in a five-hit effort.
And the Mavericks defense did its fair share of robbing. Several times in both games, Jayhawks batters slammed the ball, only to watch it land directly in the defense’s gloves.
“We were right on with the ball so many times,” KU leftfielder Brett Kappelmann said. “The baseball gods just weren’t with us today.”
But it’s not as if Kansas didn’t have its chances. Despite having only one lead the entire night (a 1-0 margin in game two’s first inning), Kansas played close.
KU trailed 4-3 in the eighth of the second game when senior night became something two who were honored wanted to forget. Two runs had already scored in the inning before a base hit by Ryan Klocksien advanced two runners. Senior Duane Thompson sprinted to third, but classmate Brett Kappelmann tried to do the same from first base.
Both men stood on third base before Kappelmann scurried back to second. The resulting run down with Thompson — despite two near throw-aways by the Mavericks — ended the inning.
“I don’t know what he was thinking,” Randall said. “But I can’t blame him. It was a hustle play.”
It’s not as if everything was downtrodden for the five seniors. Rusty Philbrick captured the school’s career strikeouts record with 242. Philbrick, who also holds KU’s record for career starts (46) and innings pitched. Philbrick set the record in the first inning of the first game. Problem was, he already trailed 3-0.
“I was pretty nervous,” Philbrick said. “I had my mom, dad, sister, grandma and girlfriend there. I had pitched in front of them all before. But I don’t think ever at the same time.”
Randall was disappointed with the hitting from the heart of the lineup. The 3-4-5 slots combined 4-for-19.
“Our guys need to do a better job (today) of making things happen,” Randall said.
Kansas will conclude its season today with another doubleheader against UT-Arlington which starts at noon. Randall chose to celebrate senior day early so that the Jayhawks would have two chances, in case of a rainout.
“The weather turned out to be great,” Randall said. “But we wanted to play it safe.”
