After being swept by Indiana State University in a rough series over the weekend, the Jays baseball team had their bats come to life to trounce Kansas University 12-4. With the win, the Jays improved to 19-9 while the Jayhawks fell to 22-14. The win also gave the Jays their second win over Kansas this season, the first being a 6-4 victory on April 2.
Both teams started fast on Tuesday night in Omaha, combining for five runs scored in the first inning. A triple by junior centerfielder Mike Gerber brought in two of the three first inning runs for the Jays. Creighton added another run in the second inning before Kansas would tie it up 4-4 in the top of the fourth inning. The Bluejays would then take a 6-4 lead off of a two RBI double by junior third baseman Federico Castagnini in the bottom half of the inning and never look back. Creighton added three runs off of three hits in both the sixth and seventh inning to extend the lead to 12-4. The Bluejay bullpen allowed only three hits in the final five-and-a-third innings of the game to seal the victory.
The Jays piled on 15 hits in the game compared to just six for the Jayhawks. Each of the first five hitters in the Bluejay lineup had a multi-hit game. Castagnini finished with two hits, four RBIs and one run scored. Gerber had three hits, three RBIs and one run scored. Junior leftfielder Brad McKewon reached base in every at-bat, piling up two hits, three walks, two RBIs and three runs scored.
On top of the win, the Bluejays set a TD Ameritrade Park Omaha record by using nine different pitchers during the game. The pitchers, although only allowing six hits, struggled a little with control in giving up eight walks. No pitcher threw for more than two innings, and in the end it was senior Mark Winkelman who earned the win, improving to 5-0 on the season.
“Our offense is capable of scoring in double digits,” Head Coach Ed Servais said. “We haven’t done that in a long time. I was encouraged by what we did offensively. Sometimes we’re not going to pitch like we want to and our offense has to be there to balance it out, and last night they were there.”
The Jays will try and keep their bats rolling as they play a conference series this weekend against the Southern Illinois University Salukis. The Salukis are 18-18 this season with a 2-7 record in the Missouri Valley Conference. The first game of the series is on Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha.