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LAWRENCE — Just days prior to the start of Kansas baseball’s recent series at home against Kansas State, KU coach Dan Fitzgerald acknowledged the adversity his side was facing.
Fitzgerald and his Jayhawks weren’t far removed from being swept on the road in Big 12 Conference play by TCU. It was the second significant setback they’d experienced during their Big 12 slate, on top of a series loss on the road against Arizona State in March. Just as the adversity that came with the Arizona State defeats served as a chance to persevere, and live out the things they say they value, so, too, were those defeats at TCU in April — which followed a midweek home loss in non-conference play against Nebraska.
Fast forward to Saturday, and the aftermath of the three-game series against Kansas State, and Kansas did more than just reinforce its ability to persevere. The Jayhawks, winners of a non-conference midweek game at home against Wichita State prior to it, swept three game against Kansas State to stretch a new winning streak to four and earn another Big 12 series victory. After dropping a bit out of the national spotlight with the disappointment against TCU, Fitzgerald and company have put themselves right back in focus.
RELATED: Patrick Steitz is back from injury, and aiming to help Kansas baseball to success in 2025
“You have to have a really short memory to play this sport,” Fitzgerald told reporters Saturday. “You’ve got to be able to get over stuff fast. There’s the hard part of playing 56, is that you have to prepare for 56, and you’ve just got to be ready to go a million times it feels like. But the good news is you have no — like, you have zero minutes to really mourn a loss because you’ve got to move on to the next one. And we let them celebrate the wins a little bit longer, but the losses we flush them the second we walk off the field.”
Kansas leaves the weekend at 31-10 overall and 12-6 against the Big 12, with the latter placing it in an advantageous position to compete for a league title as the regular season comes to a close. After a forgettable week, the Jayhawks put together one they and their fans will be thinking about for a while. This sweep against Kansas State is KU’s first in this rivalry series since 2019.
None of the three wins against Kansas State came easy. However, the Jayhawks did well enough to hold on late during the double-header on Saturday, and the day before mounted a late comeback that included a three-run home run from graduate infielder/outfielder Jackson Hauge. Hauge’s home run gave Kansas a 4-3 lead in the seventh inning of what would end up as a 5-3 win on Friday.
Fitzgerald noted Saturday he probably hasn’t zoomed out and thought about the strides the program is making as much as he should have, in the third year of a rebuild that could very well see Kansas make a NCAA regional. From his perspective, though, that comes in part because of not wanting to lose sight of the moments along the way, even how the negative ones — like that series at TCU — can serve as lessons to help the team improve. The next moment on the schedule is a rematch Tuesday on the road at Nebraska, another midweek opportunity in non-conference play.
“Looking forward to an — again, we talk about the destination, but that’s a great one on the journey,” Fitzgerald said. “And the quality midweeks that we have — three awesome ones to finish the year before we get into the conference tournament.”
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He was the 2022 National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Inside Kansas baseball’s bounce-back series win against Kansas State
Continue reading...
Fitzgerald and his Jayhawks weren’t far removed from being swept on the road in Big 12 Conference play by TCU. It was the second significant setback they’d experienced during their Big 12 slate, on top of a series loss on the road against Arizona State in March. Just as the adversity that came with the Arizona State defeats served as a chance to persevere, and live out the things they say they value, so, too, were those defeats at TCU in April — which followed a midweek home loss in non-conference play against Nebraska.
Fast forward to Saturday, and the aftermath of the three-game series against Kansas State, and Kansas did more than just reinforce its ability to persevere. The Jayhawks, winners of a non-conference midweek game at home against Wichita State prior to it, swept three game against Kansas State to stretch a new winning streak to four and earn another Big 12 series victory. After dropping a bit out of the national spotlight with the disappointment against TCU, Fitzgerald and company have put themselves right back in focus.
RELATED: Patrick Steitz is back from injury, and aiming to help Kansas baseball to success in 2025
“You have to have a really short memory to play this sport,” Fitzgerald told reporters Saturday. “You’ve got to be able to get over stuff fast. There’s the hard part of playing 56, is that you have to prepare for 56, and you’ve just got to be ready to go a million times it feels like. But the good news is you have no — like, you have zero minutes to really mourn a loss because you’ve got to move on to the next one. And we let them celebrate the wins a little bit longer, but the losses we flush them the second we walk off the field.”
Kansas leaves the weekend at 31-10 overall and 12-6 against the Big 12, with the latter placing it in an advantageous position to compete for a league title as the regular season comes to a close. After a forgettable week, the Jayhawks put together one they and their fans will be thinking about for a while. This sweep against Kansas State is KU’s first in this rivalry series since 2019.
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None of the three wins against Kansas State came easy. However, the Jayhawks did well enough to hold on late during the double-header on Saturday, and the day before mounted a late comeback that included a three-run home run from graduate infielder/outfielder Jackson Hauge. Hauge’s home run gave Kansas a 4-3 lead in the seventh inning of what would end up as a 5-3 win on Friday.
Fitzgerald noted Saturday he probably hasn’t zoomed out and thought about the strides the program is making as much as he should have, in the third year of a rebuild that could very well see Kansas make a NCAA regional. From his perspective, though, that comes in part because of not wanting to lose sight of the moments along the way, even how the negative ones — like that series at TCU — can serve as lessons to help the team improve. The next moment on the schedule is a rematch Tuesday on the road at Nebraska, another midweek opportunity in non-conference play.
“Looking forward to an — again, we talk about the destination, but that’s a great one on the journey,” Fitzgerald said. “And the quality midweeks that we have — three awesome ones to finish the year before we get into the conference tournament.”
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He was the 2022 National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Inside Kansas baseball’s bounce-back series win against Kansas State
Continue reading...
