Kansas Athletics
LAWRENCE, Kan. - Robert Kahana improved to 4-5 on the year allowing two earned runs over 6.1 innings of work while Dakota Smith drove in three runs in a three hit effort to spark Kansas’ 5-2 win over West Virginia in Big 12 action on Saturday. Kahana’s outing wasn’t one of his sharper outings as he hit three batters and recorded only one strikeout but still earned the victory, clinching the series win.
The Kansas hurler was good enough on the day to out-pitch West Virginia starter Ross Vance who surrendered five earned runs over the same stretch. Vance allowed seven hits, four walks and hit a batter in the losing effort that dropped him to 3-2. Kahana got 10 ground outs in the game, including three double plays, as he escaped multiple jams on the day before being pulled with one out in the seventh after giving up back-to-back doubles.
Kanas relievers Drew Morovick and Stephen Villines shut down WVU over the final two and two-thirds innings to secure the win as Villines grabbed his seventh save.
Smith had a hand in each of the Jayhawks’ runs beginning with a run scored on a ground out in the second inning. The junior then hit a two-run double in the third and an RBI single in the fifth before drawing a walk in the seventh to help load the bases for Tucker Tharp‘s RBI walk.
Kansas has now won eight straight conference games to pull into third place in the Big 12 and is playing their way into an at large bid for the NCAA Regionals.
MANHATTAN, Kan. - Zach Fish, Conor Costello and Dustin Williams each homer for No. 11 Oklahoma State as the Cowboys notch their eighth straight victory taking the series with a 6-4 win over Kansas State on Saturday. Fish and Costello each hit solo shots in the second while Williams two-run blast contributed to a four-run fifth that would give the Cowboys the lead for good.
FORT WORTH, Texas - Sheldon Neuse came on to pitch two and two-thirds scoreless innings for Oklahoma to earn his first win as the Sooners snapped No. 20 Texas Christian’s 13 game win streak with a 7-5 win in 11 innings at Lupton Stadium on Saturday. Oklahoma took a 5-0 lead into the bottom of the ninth and it evaporated with the help of a bases loaded triple by the Horned Frogs’ Derek Odell. A wild pitch by TCU’s closer Riley Ferrell allowed Craig Aiken to score the winning run for Oklahoma to even the series and set up a Sunday rubber match.
