Fayetteville, Ark. — Creighton Baseball’s return to the NCAA Tournament came with a convincing reminder of how dangerous the Bluejays can be. Behind a seven-run sixth inning, Creighton defeated No. 25 Kansas, 11-4, on Friday night to open play in the Fayetteville Regional.
Making their first NCAA appearance since 2019, the 42-14 Bluejays combined timely hitting, steady defense, and a composed pitching performance to take down a Kansas team that has been among the nation’s most potent lineups all season.
“I’m very pleased with how we played in all three areas tonight,” Head Coach Ed Servais said. “We beat a very good team, a dangerous team, in this ballpark with as many extra-base hits and homeruns that they did coming in. … I was just pleased with our pitching to hold a team like that to four runs. Obviously, our offense was really, really good tonight, and we didn’t make any mistakes defensively. We beat a really good club.”
Graduate student Dominic Cancellieri wasted no time settling. Just one of two athletes on the roster with NCAA Tournament experience, the right-hander opened the night with three straight strikes and needed just 11 pitches to retire the Jayhawks in order. Moments later, Creighton struck first as senior Will MacLean crushed a 455-foot solo homer to give the Bluejays an early 1-0 lead after one and a half innings of play.
Kansas quickly countered in the bottom of the frame, taking advantage of a two-out walk before Tommy Barth sent a two-run homer over the left-field fence to give the Jayhawks a 2-1 lead—their only lead of the night.
The Bluejays wasted little time punching back.
In the top of the third, after Barth robbed graduate student Kyle Hess of a leadoff home run at the wall, Creighton built a patient, pressure-filled inning. Graduate student Dakota Duffalo drew a walk, and back-to-back singles from junior Tate Gillen and graduate student Matt Scherrman loaded the bases with one out. Senior Nolan Sailors drew a four-pitch walk to even the score, and Gillen crossed the plate on a fielder’s choice to give CU a 3-2 advantage.
But Kansas struck again quickly. On the first pitch of the bottom of the fourth, Derek Cerda launched his tenth home run of the season to even the score at 3-apiece. Cancellierei exited after four innings, having allowed four hits and two walks while striking out five in his 76-pitch outing. The BIG EAST Pitcher of the Year’s ERA now stands at 2.29—ranking 13th nationally among qualified pitchers.
From that point on, it was all Creighton.
The sixth inning unraveled quickly for Kansas. Four of Creighton’s first five batters reached, forcing the Jayhawks to pull starter Domini Voegele. Junior Teddy Deters drew a walk, was bunted into scoring position by Hess, and scored on Duffalo’s single to right. Tate Gillen followed with his third hit of the night—driving in 2 runs to break the deadlock—and the rally was only the beginning.
“You know, some players have a knack for that, and Tate does,” Servais said. “If you remember, he got a big hit in the final game of the conference tournament, right? That gave us a four-run lead and we needed it desperately. Or I guess a five-run lead at that point. But Tate has a knack for coming up big in those situations. So, if you look at his average, you say, ‘Ah, you know, he’s had an okay year.’ And if you look at some of the other aspects of Tate, he’s a great defender and he’s one of the guys you want up in that situation. He just knows how to put the ball in play. He’s a really good competitor and he never backs up away from those kinds of situations.”
The Bluejays then piled on, forcing Kansas to make a call to the bullpen. After Scherrman’s single put runners on first and second, the Jayhawks turned to reliever Manning West. But Creighton’s momentum didn’t slow. Sailors welcomed West with a two-run double to right-center. A fielding error allowed junior Ben North to reach and move Sailors to third, and sophomore Connor Capece brought him home with a sacrifice fly to deep center.
MacLean followed with his second extra-base hit of the night—an RBI double smoked into the right-field corner—and Deters returned to the plate for the second time of the inning and doubled to right center to score MacLean, stretching the lead to 10-3 and prompting Kansas to make another change.
That’s when Malakai Vetock, a former Bluejay, jogged in from the bullpen. The moment was unmistakably personal—Creighton’s lineup was now facing a former teammate, and both sides knew it. Vetock plunked Hess but managed to stop the bleeding, retiring Duffalo to finally end the inning. By then, the damage had already been done. Creighton erupted for seven runs on six hits to take a 10-3 lead through five and a half innings.
“Just feeding off each other, you know,” MacLean said. “When we find a way to get that leadoff batter on and then keep building on that, we definitely feed off each other’s energy, and when one guy gets going, we all get going, and we feel the energy from the guy in front of us, the guy behind us, and the guys on the bench. Once we get hot we stay hot, and for us to have a big inning like that and really pull away, that’s something that we’re going to learn from and keep doing that into tomorrow.”
During the rally, the crowd of 9681 at Baum-Walker Stadium grew noticeably still—aside from the traveling Bluejay fans behind the third-base dugout. Their cheers were the only ones audible during a sixth inning that flipped the game and silenced one of college baseball’s rowdiest venues and fandoms.
Sailors added to his career night an inning later, launching a solo shot in the seventh to push his line to 3-for-4 with a double, triple, home run, four RBI, and two walks. The Omaha native became just the second Bluejay in program history to record a double, triple and a home run in an NCAA Tournament, joining Chad McConnell in 1992.
“I felt great the whole game,” Sailors said. “In the first AB, I went down two strikes pretty quickly, then was able to barrel the ball to left center. I feel like every time I am able to barrel a ball to the offside of the field, I am pretty set for the rest of the game.”
Junior Ian Koosman took over on the mound after Cancellieri’s exit and delivered exactly what Creighton needed. He retired 12 of the 13 batters he faced, throwing just 42 pitches across four efficient innings to earn his team-leading ninth win of the season. Senior Jimmy Burke came on for the ninth and opened his outing just like Cancellieri did—three straight strikes. Back-to-back fly-outs to center field sealed the deal for the Bluejays, powering past Kansas 11-4 to move on to the winner’s bracket.
Creighton’s defense was sharp all night, cutting off anything hit into the gaps and holding Kansas to just three singles that stayed inside the park. All four of the Jayhawks’ runs came via home runs—one in each of the second, fourth, and eighth innings—as they upped their program-record season total to 103.
Friday’s win marked Creighton’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2019—and their first victory in regional play since then as well. It also extended the Bluejays’ win streak to eight games, the fourth-longest active streak in the country, and improved their mark to 22-2 over the past 24 contests.
“It’s awesome,” Sailors said. “I mean, past four years, we’ve been working for this every single year. I mean, it’s finally awesome to make a regional and then win our first game in the regional was awesome against a really good team. And we’re definitely looking forward to tomorrow against an even better team. We just know we can compete with any other team on the other side of the field. So… we’re really looking forward to it.”
Creighton advances to face third-seeded and sixth-ranked Arkansas in tonight’s winner’s bracket game. First pitch is set for at 7 p.m. CT.