Oklahoma City ? Kansas State used three three-run innings to knock off Kansas University, 10-5, in the Big 12 baseball tournament on Friday at Bricktown Ballpark.
The setback was KU’s fifth straight and eliminated the Jayhawks from the league title game.
Kansas bolted to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first, but K-State took the lead for good with a three-run second and three more in the third.
“Obviously, it is really disappointing,” said Cameron Selik (6-4), who took the loss. “The main thing that we emphasize is that once you put a couple of runs, you have to go and throw up a zero, keep the momentum with your team, and I wasn’t able to do that in the second and third inning. We fell behind early, but we battled back, but I put us in a big-enough hole that we weren’t able to fight back.”
Kansas fell to 31-26-1, while K-State improved to 36-19.
Trailing by 5, KU got back into the game by sending nine men to the plate in the bottom of the sixth inning. Junior Tony Thompson started things with a single up the middle and moved to third on Jimmy Waters’ second double of the afternoon. Junior Casey Lytle, sophomore Zac Elgie and senior Robby Price each collected RBI hits in the rally to bring the Jayhawks within 7-5.
However, that’s as close as KU would get. K-State’s bullpen combination of Justin Lindsey and James Allen allowed base-runners in each of the final three innings, but worked out of trouble.
Kansas stranded nine runners and twice had runners at third with fewer than two outs, but failed to put the ball in play.
“If you don’t take advantage of every scoring opportunity you have, especially like that when you don’t have to get a base hit, you set yourself up to have to come a long ways from behind,” KU coach Ritch Price said.
KSU put it away with a three-run ninth.
Since the May 18 game at Arkansas-Little Rock, the Jayhawks have played six games and allowed 24 ninth-inning runs, compared to 28 in innings one through eight in those games.
Kansas will conclude the tournament at 7:30 tonight against Baylor.
