LAWRENCE, Kan. – The Kansas Jayhawks ran their season-best winning streak to 10 straight games after claiming both ends of a doubleheader against No. 12 UCF on Saturday at Hoglund Ballpark.
Kansas, now 26-10 (12-3 Big 12) on the year, won the first game 6-3 to claim the series before finishing off the three-game sweep with a 3-1 victory in the series finale. The Jayhawks improved to 9-0 at home in Big 12 play and went 4-0 this week against ranked opponents after also claiming a 5-3 win at No. 19 Nebraska on Tuesday night.
The three-game sweep of the Knights puts the Jayhawks atop the Big 12 standings at the midway point of the conference season by two games.
“This is a special group of guys. They love each other, they love playing the game together, and I just love watching them compete,” Coach Dan Fitzgerald said. “It was a complete team effort. Two unbelievable starts on the mound today, and a special day of baseball…The crowd, Jayhawk Nation, always shows up and you’ve just seen it grow.”
Jayhawk Nation was treated to strong pitching, timely hitting and opportunistic defense in the doubleheader sweep. Starting pitchers Dominic Voegele and Mason Cook both picked up wins and combined to throw 13 innings, allowing eight hits, four runs, four walks and 16 strikeouts. At the plate, Cade Baldridge, Tyson LeBlanc, Max Soliz Jr., and Josh Dykhoff all had three hits over the two games.
GAME 1: KANSAS 6, UCF 3
Voegele got all the run support he needed in the first three innings of the contest. After a scoreless first, the Jayhawks struck first when Soliz hit a two-run home run to make it 2-0.
The homer was Soliz’s fourth of the season and the senior from Houston picked up right where he left off in Friday’s game where he won the contest on a walk-off line drive single in the 11th inning.
Kansas went right back to work in the third inning to give Voegele even more support. LeBlanc and Brady Ballinger started the inning off with back-to-back singles to put two men on. After UCF recorded a pair of outs, Soliz drew a walk to load the bases for Dykhoff.
Dykhoff took the second pitch of the at-bat and hammered it to center field for a double to plate all three runs and give Kansas and Voegele a 5-0 lead.
While the Jayhawks were scoring, Voegele was on cruise control. He faced two over the minimum through five innings and didn’t give up his first hit until the fourth inning when he gave up a lead-off single to Andrew Williamson. He then sat the next three down in order to get out of the inning.
The junior right-hander didn’t run into trouble until the seventh when he surrendered a two-out triple that allowed UCF to get on the board and cut it to 5-1. Voegele started the eighth and allowed the first two runners to reach via a walk and a base hit. Manning West came on in relief and UCF added two more runs on a sacrifice fly and a base hit. West retired the final two batters of the inning to escape further damage.
Voegele tied his career high with 10 strikeouts, allowing three runs on five hits, while walking just one. He earned the win and improved to 3-2 on the season, collecting career win No. 17.
“Dom was as good as he’s ever been,” Fitzgerald said. “He was electric. He had both fastballs going. He had both breakers going. He had a great pace. He handed it over to the pen and those guys were outstanding.”
Kansas provided its pitching staff with an insurance run in the eighth when Jordan Bach lifted a sacrifice fly to center to score Soliz and make it 6-3.
Right-hander Riane Ritter entered for the second straight day and pitched a perfect ninth to earn his first career save and ensure a series win for the Jayhawks.
GAME 2: KANSAS 3, UCF 1
Similar to the opener of the doubleheader, Kansas didn’t waste any time getting on the scoreboard to take an early lead.
The first two batters of the game, Bach and Baldridge, both singled to put two on right from the jump. Following a flyout, Ballinger grounded out to third, which scored Bach to give Kansas a 1-0 lead.
That remained the score until the third when the UCF offense got to Cook for the first and only time. The first batter of the inning, DeAmez Ross, singled and then moved to second on an error and third on a sacrifice bunt. Cayden Gaskin then singled Ross home to even the game at one apiece in the third.
But Kansas gave Cook the lead right back in the bottom half of the inning. Dylan Schlotterback led off the inning with a single and moved to second on a wild pitch. Baldridge then roped a single to right to score Schlotterback. Following a hit from LeBlanc and a Ballinger hit-by-pitch, Augusto Mungarrieta lifted a sacrifice fly to center to score Baldridge and make it 3-1.
Cook took the two-run lead and ran with it, in his longest outing as a Jayhawk. He threw up zeroes in the fourth, fifth and sixth, allowing just one hit and a pair of walks over those three frames. The sophomore from Keller, Texas finished, going six innings, allowing just three hits, three walks and one run, while striking out six.
The bullpen handled it from there. Toby Scheidt tossed 1.2 perfect innings to bridge the gap to the ninth when Boede Rahe entered. Rahe, who tossed a three-inning save in Tuesday’s win over Nebraska and then a three-inning win in Friday’s victory over UCF, pitched a scoreless ninth to earn his third save of the season.
“Boede was primed and ready to pitch, and there was no way he wasn’t going in to close it out,” Fitzgerald said.
NOTABLES
• Kansas improved to 26-10 overall this season and moved into sole possession of first place in the Big 12 with a 12-3 league record.
• Kansas is now 9-0 in Big 12 games at Hoglund Ballpark this season and 13-2 at home overall.
• Kansas is riding a season-best 10-game winning streak.
• The Jayhawks won their second straight conference series by sweep and picked up the third three-game conference series sweep of the season.
• Kansas has won 16 of its last 18 games.
• Kansas improves to 6-2 against ranked opponents this season, with a 4-0 record this week against Top 25 opponents.
UP NEXT
Kansas hosts Wichita State on Tuesday, April 14, at Hoglund Ballpark before heading to Stillwater, Oklahoma, next weekend for a three-game series at Oklahoma State on April 17-19.
