The Kansas baseball team swept Texas Southern at Hoglund Ballpark over the weekend, completing its first four-game sweep in nearly three years.
After the Jayhawks’ 11-2 victory Friday in their first game back in Lawrence this season, they proceeded to win two of the next three over the Tigers in seven innings, one as scheduled and one by run rule. The other game, the second half of Saturday’s doubleheader, was a convincing result at 10-3 — even if they didn’t quite pile on 32 runs like Texas Tech had against TSU earlier in the season.
That game provided the Tigers’ biggest threat of the weekend as they got three runs across in the first inning against starter Grant Adler, but KU responded with five of its own the first time it came up to the plate, including two-RBI base hits by Janson Reeder and Luke Leto, and the bullpen shut the Tigers out the rest of the way.
Standout performers at the plate elsewhere in the series included Jake English, who continued his hot start to the year with two solo home runs Saturday, and New Mexico transfer Lenny Ashby, who now leads the Jayhawks in batting average after a 3-for-3 Sunday showing in which he was a triple short of the cycle. Patrick Steitz did not allow a run for the second time in his three starts this year.
“I thought the guys did a great job of controlling the strike zone,” head coach Dan Fitzgerald said in a press release Sunday. “We really did a good job on both sides of the ball with that. On the mound today, just one walk and five punch outs and then (at the plate) today four walks, four strikeouts. I think yesterday we were plus, the day before we were plus, so I thought they controlled the strike zone really well and just stuck to what they do well. We didn’t try to do too much.”
The degree of difficulty will ratchet up significantly for KU as it hosts unbeaten TCU to open conference play beginning Friday.
Softball
The KU softball team, which still hasn’t played at home this year (that first appearance at Arrocha Ballpark comes Tuesday evening against Creighton), picked up three more victories on the road in Tennessee to extend its winning streak to eight in a row.
Presley Limbaugh went 3-for-3 and Aynslee Linduff had a two-RBI single in Thursday’s game at Austin Peay, as the Jayhawks’ pitching staff kept the Governors contained and won 5-2.
After a weather-related cancellation at Belmont the next day, KU faced the Bruins in a doubleheader Saturday and came away with a pair of hard-fought one-run victories.
The Jayhawks managed just five hits in the first game, but one of those was a go-ahead home run by Lyric Moore in extra innings, as Kasey Hamilton shut down the Belmont lineup for eight frames in a 1-0 victory. The bottom half of the doubleheader saw quite a bit more success for both offenses, as a grand slam by Hailey Cripe ended up beating out a three-run home run by Belmont’s Lauren Luciani.
“I knew I had to come through for my teammates, because they worked so hard to get on base,” Cripe said in a release. “(It) was my job to finally come through and be that leader for my team.”
KU took a 5-4 victory as Olivia Bruno was able to recover from Luciani’s homer and strike out Baie Ensio for the final out of the day.
Tennis
The Jayhawks snapped a four-match losing streak and earned bragging rights when they took down No. 58 Kansas State in Manhattan on Sunday, 4-1.
Three quick singles victories — Gracie Mulville’s at No. 1, Kyoka Kubo’s 10th straight at No. 4 and Maria Titova’s at No. 2 — got KU over the hump.
“It was a battle. Anytime you play your in-state rival, you know that you’re going to get their best,” head coach Todd Chapman said in a release. “I feel like we have been really close all year and we’re getting healthier, so hopefully we can build some positive momentum off of today.”
KU will host Iowa State on Saturday.
Swim and dive
Freshman Shiyun Lai won a Big 12 Conference title for the Jayhawks in the three-meter dive, as her score of 406.20 beat out TCU’s Anna Kwong (369.75) and Texas’ Bridget O’Neil (363.65).
Lai won the Women’s Diving Newcomer of the Meet award at the conference meet in Morgantown, West Virginia, which concluded Saturday. KU finished seventh overall as a team.
Lai and her fellow divers will be in action for NCAA Zone Diving in Houston beginning next Monday.
Kansas freshman Shiyun Lai competes in the 3-meter diving event during the meet against Arkansas on Friday, Jan. 26, 2024, at Robinson Natatorium.
Carter Gaskins/Special to the Journal-World
Landon Cory/Special to the Journal-World