After winning two out of three games against The University of Nebraska at Omaha over the weekend, the Creighton baseball team continued their winning ways with a 6-4 win over the Kansas University Jayhawks. The Jays improved to 15-6 on the season with the win.
Kansas struck first on Tuesday evening, taking a 1-0 lead in the first inning. Junior outfielder Mike Gerber hit his third home run of the season for the Jays in the top of the second inning to spark a five-run inning to give the Jays a lead. Creighton only recorded three hits in the inning, but capitalized off of stolen bases, walks and errors to jump out to a lead.
Both teams had strong pitching the rest of the way, but Kansas chipped away at the lead and entered the home half of the ninth inning down 6-3. An early error in the inning by the Jays brought the Jayhawks within two. Kansas then put two men on base and had the potential winning run come to the plate twice, but sophomore closer Jake Peter forced two fly outs to secure the win for the Bluejays.
The Bluejays only managed six hits in the game compared to the eight of the Jayhawks, but also drew eight walks while only giving up three. Sophomore catcher Kevin Lamb had two RBIs in the game, bringing in one off of a bases loaded walk in the second inning, and another off of a single in the eighth. The Jays used seven different pitchers on the way to victory on Tuesday, with freshman Austin Groth earning his first win of the season.
“We don’t ask a lot of our pitchers to do too much, like to go out and pitch six, seven or eight innings,” head coach Ed Servais said. “But we do ask them to go out there often and try and get three or four outs … We have seven freshmen in our top 12 pitchers, the most we’ve ever had during my time here. They’re starting to make some progress and each and every time they’re out there they are getting more comfortable. We’re excited about the future of those young arms.”
The Jays will try and continue their strong start as they begin their second MVC series of the season with three home games against the Bradley University Braves this weekend. The Braves are 11-13 on the season. The first game of the series is on Friday evening at 6 p.m. at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha.