The best Kansas baseball season in the program’s recent history ended with a thud on Monday afternoon.
In the weather-delayed conclusion of the second game of the Lawrence Super Regional, the Jayhawks couldn’t muster anything resembling a comeback and fell 13-2 to visiting Oklahoma at Hoglund Ballpark, concluding their season.
The Sooners’s six-run second inning from late Sunday night, prior to the suspension due to lightning, got OU most of the way to the College World Series, and KU’s quiet bats and Deiten Lachance and Dasan Harris’ two-run homers in the sixth combined to end any hopes of a late comeback for the Jayhawks.
KU ended the season with a cumulative record of 45-18, matching a school record for wins. The Jayhawks claimed their first regular-season conference title since 1949, their first conference tournament title since 2006 and the championship of their first-ever home regional in head coach Dan Fitzgerald’s fourth season at the helm.
They did not, however, return to the Men’s College World Series after losing two games by a combined 18 runs to the lower-seeded Sooners.
“I could break down this game and the things that went wrong yesterday and today,” Fitzgerald said, “but I just told them after the game that I’m incredibly proud of them and we’ve brought this program to a pretty special place, and it’s because of who they are as baseball players, but way more who they are as men, and I couldn’t be more proud of them, and my only regret is that we don’t get to play more baseball together, because they’re a special group.”
The game that began on Sunday resumed, following a 15-hour, 22-minute delay, at 12:02 p.m. on Monday with KU trailing 8-1.
“Our attitude going into it was just as long as we have an out left, we have a chance,” shortstop Tyson LeBlanc said.
Boede Rahe returned to the mound for the Jayhawks after he had allowed a solo home run to his first batter immediately before the stoppage. OU continued to make Rahe work, but he was able to pick Camden Johnson off first base and got Lachance to ground out to end the inning.
Xander Mercurius continued his outing after throwing 49 pitches earlier in the game and provided a scoreless fourth frame, but he issued a four-pitch walk to Jordan Bach to lead off the fifth and gave way to lefty Nate Smithburg. Savion Flowers immediately grounded into a 5-4-3 double play.
Rahe continued to settle in against the Sooners, but KU’s offense did not hold up its end of the bargain. On one of the instances in which the Jayhawks did get strong contact, Harris took away a potential base hit for Augusto Mungarrieta with a diving catch in the sixth inning.
“There was always that belief,” Fitzgerald said. “We just couldn’t string it together, and when you’re chasing runs like that, whether you’re down eight or down whatever, you have to play for a big inning, which really limits the creativity that you can do. And not that we were ever incredibly creative with stealing and hitting and running, but we just couldn’t get into a groove. I certainly felt like we were always one inning away, but they just did a really good job of executing and we just couldn’t get it rolling.”
OU broke through for its first runs of the day when Lachance hit a two-run home run to right field. That ended Rahe’s season, as Toby Scheidt took the mound in place of the first-team all-league closer. He got two quick outs before hitting Brendan Brock with a pitch and then giving up another homer to Harris.
A member of KU’s starting rotation for much of the season, righty Mathis Nayral, took over in the late innings for the Jayhawks.
LeBlanc hit a solo home run off Smithburg with two outs in the eighth, adding to his program record with his 25th and last of the season.
“Rounding the bases, I thought that would be the spark that we needed, maybe get something going,” LeBlanc said. “Didn’t work out that way, but it was a good feeling to go out with a bang.”
Smithburg walked Tyson Owens, and OU brought Jason Bodin out of the bullpen. Bodin induced a first-pitch fielder’s choice by Mungarrieta for an out.
Trey Gambill countered LeBlanc with an eighth-inning homer of his own against Nayral to make it 13-2. Freshman lefty Emerson McKnight entered for the Jayhawks for his seventh appearance of the season and wrapped up the inning, before Jackson Cleveland concluded the game for OU.
“There’s a reason they’re going to Omaha,” LeBlanc said. “Wish them nothing but the best over there. They executed their pitches, they executed their at-bats all weekend, and kudos to them.”
Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World
