Scott McClurg/Journal-World PhotoThe way Kansas University baseball coach Ritch Price sees it, Jayhawk Gus Milner helped his team win the game and perhaps future in-state recruiting battles — and he might have gotten himself quite a pay increase as well Wednesday night.
Milner, a junior from Olathe, smashed two three-run home runs as he went 5-for-6 with six RBIs and four runs scored as the Jayhawks rocked rival Wichita State, 13-6, in front of 1,322 fans at Hoglund Ballpark.
“There were three or four national cross-checkers here, and he might have earned himself a quarter-million dollars,” Price said of Milner’s “special” performance in front of a handful of professional scouts.
Personally, Milner was more pleased that his big night came at the hands of the national program he passed up to help be a building block in establishing a top program at KU.
“I had a little personal incentive. I felt like I should come up big for KU, especially against Wichita State since it’s a big rivalry game,” said Milner, who was recruited by WSU and KU while at Hutchinson Community College.
Longtime Wichita State coach Gene Stephenson said he lamented the fact he was unable to land Milner.
“He wasn’t a guy that we passed on. Gus Milner was a guy we recruited hard to come here, but we didn’t get him,” said Stephenson, whose Shockers (23-10) have fallen on hard times after starting the year 15-1.
Wichita State has lost four out of its last six and nine of its last 17.
One of the Shockers’ biggest problems has been a lack of slugging, something the Jayhawks didn’t lack Wednesday.
While Kansas (23-12) slammed 16 hits in a game that went three hours and eight minutes and was slowed by 11 combined pitching changes and persistent rainfall midway through, the Jayhawks’ biggest haymakers were their three home runs — one-third of the number WSU has hit all year.
Milner’s first shot, a laser into the trees in left field, gave KU a 5-0 advantage after three innings.
WSU got back in the game in the top of the fifth, scoring three runs thanks to a handful of KU miscues.
But the Jayhawks answered the Shockers rally with three runs in the bottom of the fifth inning
Andy Scholl, who was 3-for-3 as a pinch hitter, slugged another three-run bomb over the right-field wall to extend KU’s lead to 8-4.
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By the time Gilner, who was a triple away from the cycle, launched the game’s biggest shot, a tape-measure trajectory into left center, the game was over.
“It was the same thing that happened here last year,” said Stephenson, whose squad lost, 13-6, in Lawrence last year. “We’re not good enough to play Tuesday, Wednesday and a weekend series. We’re not pitching good enough, and we’re not hitting good enough.”
Price said he hoped the victory could carry over into the Jayhawks’ weekend series at Oklahoma.
“We all know in this game one night can turn your season around,” he said with a smile.
