The Kansas baseball team escaped a potential disaster on Thursday evening thanks to an unlikely hero.
Savion Flowers, a sophomore outfielder from Cisco College, entered as a defensive replacement midway through KU’s Big 12 tournament opener against Baylor. At the time, the Jayhawks had built a six-run lead.
By the 10th inning, though, KU needed Flowers to hit a walk-off home run off the Bears’ closer, Caleb Bunch, to give them an 8-7 victory at Surprise Stadium in Surprise, Arizona.
“The coaches did a great job preparing us for that in the offseason, in the fall, and so it’s just another rep to me,” Flowers told reporters postgame.
Flowers, who previously had 10 at-bats on the year, was only in action because Brady Ballinger is out for the Big 12 tournament due to a hamate bone injury. But Flowers replaced Max Soliz Jr. in left field after Soliz had struck out twice early, and then the Chicago native proceeded to go 2-for-3 with two much-needed RBIs.
“It’s amazing because a guy like Savion hasn’t had the chances that, honestly, he’s earned, because we’ve played really well and we’ve been hot, and we’ve had guys ahead of him that have consistently played and never really opened the door,” KU coach Dan Fitzgerald said. “It’s an incredible moment for a door to open and have a guy like this step in.”
The quarterfinal matchup never needed to be that dramatic. Dominic Voegele pitched a seven-inning gem with eight strikeouts, no walks and one earned run allowed. Augusto Mungarrieta, Tyson LeBlanc and Tyson Owens homered early as KU built its lead.
But when Voegele exited, a combination of an off day for Riane Ritter and a key fielding error by Josh Dykhoff allowed the Bears to score four runs in the eighth.
That still shouldn’t have been enough for Baylor with KU’s all-conference closer Boede Rahe on the mound, and indeed Rahe got the Bears down to their last strike, but Pearson Riebock delivered a two-out two-RBI hit that sent the game to extras.
“Great college baseball game, another example of the Big 12 and how deep it is and just how competitive every game is,” Fitzgerald said.
Riebock and Cole Lanclos had two hits apiece for the eighth-seeded Bears, who nearly dealt regular-season champion KU’s hopes of hosting a regional a massive blow. But the Jayhawks are alive and well and will face No. 5 seed Oklahoma State at 6:30 p.m. Central time in a semifinal matchup on Friday.
Voegele struck out a pair of Bears early in a scoreless inning. KU showed some promise after a first-pitch single by LeBlanc, but Owens grounded into a double play.
In the second inning, Dykhoff drilled another leadoff single, and this time Mungarrieta followed it up with a two-run homer. The Jayhawks put two more runners on, aided by a one-out error, but stranded them.
Baylor got its first hit from Riebock with a single in the top of the fourth. He was able to get to second on a two-out delayed steal, but Voegele struck out Dylan Perez on the next pitch.
KU put balls in play against Baylor starter Zack Wallace, but to little effect, as he sat down the Jayhawks in order in the bottom of the fourth.
Lanclos got the better of Voegele with a two-out base hit to bring up the dangerous Travis Sanders at top of the order, but LeBlanc made a strong throw to beat him out at first on a soft ground ball.
LeBlanc then proceeded to smash Wallace’s misplaced breaking ball for a homer that made it 3-0 in the bottom of the fifth. That was LeBlanc’s 20th of the year, tying him for second place in KU history and bringing him within one of Tony Thompson’s record. Tyson Owens followed him up with another solo shot moments later.
Wallace stayed in and allowed a hit to Cade Baldridge. Dykhoff popped out in the infield, but Mungarrieta singled and moved Baldridge to third.
That was it for Wallace, who gave way to lefty Stefan Stahl. Stahl immediately hit Jordan Bach with his first pitch, then walked Dylan Schlotterback on a full count to score a run.
A wild pitch during Dariel Osoria’s at-bat allowed Mungarrieta to come home for a 6-0 score before Stahl struck out Osoria on a full count.
Voegele sat down three more Bears, then Stahl worked around a walk and infield single to keep the margin at six runs.
With two outs in the seventh, Baylor’s Ty Johnson forced Voegele into his first three-ball count of the game, then sent the full-count pitch to right field for an RBI double to break up the shutout. Voegele remained in the game and got Lanclos to fly out to center field.
“We come up with the game plan beforehand, and I felt like we executed it pretty well today and trusted the defense a whole lot,” Voegele said of his outing.
Flowers, who had entered midway through the game as a defensive replacement, singled up the middle to score Schlotterback and make it 7-1.
In relief, Ritter was not quite as stingy as Voegele. He issued Baylor’s first walk of the day before Brady Janusek singled; then, he started out ahead 0-2 against Riebock before throwing four straight balls to load the bases.
Brytton Clements followed that up with a two-RBI double. With one out and runners on second and third, KU had to go to closer Boede Rahe.
Perez’s hard-hit ball off Rahe bounced off the glove of Dykhoff for an error, continuing the Bears’ rally with two more runs. Perez reached second, but couldn’t come home after a pair of groundouts as Rahe held the margin at 7-5.
Baylor’s RJ Ruais struck out three straight Jayhawks to keep it there and put the pressure back on Rahe.
Lanclos came aboard with a leadoff single. Sanders struck out on a full count, but Tyce Armstrong walked. Then the runners advanced to second and third on a wild pitch to put KU in even more jeopardy.
Janusek went down swinging on an outside pitch, but Riebock came through with a single to right field that tied the game. He did get caught stealing to halt the rally.
Bunch sent the game to extra innings, and Rahe responded with a more composed scoreless inning as his pitch count climbed over 50.
That turned out to buy enough time for the Jayhawks’ offense to get the single swing it needed from Flowers.
