Fayetteville, Ark. — The Kansas baseball team has come from behind to win on 26 occasions this season, accounting for a solid 60% of its overall win total on the year.
The Jayhawks had never come back from seven runs down, though, and Creighton imposed that big a deficit on KU in the span of a single inning on Friday night at Baum-Walker Stadium, turning a 3-3 tie into a 10-3 blowout.
In the sixth inning, Creighton leadoff man Tate Gillen’s go-ahead two-RBI single accelerated the end of a shaky outing for KU ace Dominic Voegele, and a double by the Bluejays’ top hitter Nolan Sailors broke the game open moments later.
Sailors finished the game a single short of the cycle as he drove in four runs with a double, triple and home run.
Creighton easily closed out an 11-4 victory, moving on to face host Arkansas, while consigning KU to an elimination game with North Dakota State at 2 p.m. Saturday.
“It’s hard to win a game when you give up 16 hits, and they were outstanding,” KU coach Dan Fitzgerald said. “They were just really good in the strike zone today (at) moving the baseball. They did a bunch with two strikes and obviously had a good plan and a good approach and they executed it. And then, obviously, not the way we drew it up.”
Both teams went scoreless in the first inning, although while Voegele allowed a leadoff single and some loud contact, his counterpart Dominic Cancellieri blew through the top of the Jayhawks’ lineup with two early strikeouts.
The Bluejays got on the board first with two outs in the second inning when first baseman Will MacLean clubbed a no-doubt home run 455 feet to right field.
KU looked perilously close to going down in order for a second straight frame, but former Razorback Michael Brooks drew a full-count walk, and left fielder Tommy Barth put the Jayhawks in front with a two-run shot to left-center field, his first home run since March 23.
He then robbed a potential home run by Kyle Hess for the first out of the third.
“A great player, a great teammate, my only regret with Tommy is not being able to coach him for four years,” Fitzgerald said. “Having him for one is not long enough. He’s a great kid.”
Nevertheless, after the robbery, Creighton proceeded to load the bases with a walk and a pair of singles, setting up their top hitter Sailors in the No. 3 hole. Voegele walked him on four pitches. After a mound visit, during which time KU started to warm up reliever Manning West, Ben North drove in one more run with a hard-hit ball to third base that resulted in a fielder’s choice before KU escaped the inning.
Voegele was close to his first 1-2-3 inning in the fourth, but he hit Hess with a two-out 2-2 pitch. The Bluejays once again put two additional runners on, but this time Voegele prevented any damage by striking out Matt Scherrman on three pitches.
KU center fielder Derek Cerda evened the score at 3-3 with a home run into the Creighton bullpen on the first pitch of the bottom of the fourth. The Jayhawks got a runner on and then hard contact on a couple of pitches from Cancellieri, but didn’t score any further.
Sailors reached third on the first at-bat of the fifth inning after Cerda misplayed a line drive in center field trying to hold him to a single. However, Voegele struck out a pair of Bluejays and then got MacLean to pop out to preserve the tie.
The Jayhawks were not so fortunate one inning later. With a runner on second and one out following a sacrifice bunt, Voegele allowed three singles on three consecutive pitches, which resulted in both a pair of runs for Creighton and his exit from the game. West entered with runners on first and second with one out, both of which promptly scored on Sailors’ double to right-center field.
The inning went from bad to worse on an error by Sawyer Smith that put runners on the corners, resulting in a sacrifice fly by Connor Capece to make it 8-3. MacLean and Teddy Deters each doubled to drive in one more run apiece and chase West in favor of former Creighton pitcher Malakai Vetock, who managed to bring the run to an end.
“It wasn’t our best inning of baseball,” Barth said. “We wanted to get back in the dugout and put up some runs as quickly as possible.”
Fitzgerald said it was frustrating to see the game go south for Voegele after he had been at his best in the fifth inning. Voegele was charged with seven runs on nine hits and four walks in 5 1/3 innings.
“His pitch count was fine and he had plenty of rest,” Fitzgerald said. “They did a really nice job of moving the ball. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20 and I would have liked to have done some things differently in the sixth inning. But there were no indicators before that that anything was (wrong) — they weren’t getting amazing swings off and then it kind of snowballed there. You ride the horse as long as you can. Dom’s been our guy for two years. You got to give him those opportunities to work out of it, and (it) didn’t work out tonight.”
Sailors added to the lead with a solo shot off Malakai Vetock in the seventh; Dariel Osoria answered with one in the eighth against Ian Koosman.
Creighton loaded the bases with Dalton Smith pitching in the ninth, but Smith struck out North and Capece.
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