Texas Tops Cats, Takes Series

Kansas State played just the way it wanted to on Sunday afternoon.

Two days earlier, after a one-run victory over top-ranked Texas to open the series, KSU relief pitcher Evan Marshall described his team as "brave."

In the series finale on Sunday, that's exactly the way the Wildcats played again.

Only this time, it wasn't enough for the victory, as 20th-ranked K-State fell to the Longhorns, 6-5, at Tointon Family Stadium.

After watching the Longhorns blast three solo home runs in the first inning, KSU starting pitcher Justin Lindsey and the Wildcats could have easily folded. Some teams might have.

Instead, K-State rallied and put itself nine outs away from beating the Longhorns for a second time in three days.

But a culmination of mistakes in the final three innings doomed the Cats and proved too costly to overcome.

"I thought the kids fought really hard today," head coach Brad Hill said. "They fought hard and competed. We just came up a little short."

That fight in the Wildcats (32-15, 11-9) came after Lindsey was able to overcome an adversity-filled first inning where he gave up three homers to the first five batters he faced.

Lindsey suddenly locked in, though, after striking out Longhorn catcher Cameron Rupp to end the potentially disastrous inning.

He didn't allow a hit for the next three innings, which allowed the Wildcats to rally and get back into the game. He pitched 5 1/3 innings and struck out a career-high nine batters on the day.

"My hats off to (Lindsey)," Texas head coach Augie Garrido said. "He gave up three home runs and he never flinched. He kept coming after them, hit the mitt and never showed any fear of anybody, and I thought that's what kept them in the game."

K-State began to make noise in the third inning, but failed to capitalize on a bases-loaded situation. But in the fourth inning, the Wildcats finally broke through.

With two runners in scoring position, Tanner Witt singled up the middle, bringing home Blair DeBord and Mike Kindel to tie the game at three.

Junior Carter Jurica followed with a sacrifice single and Nick Martini singled, giving the Wildcats a 5-3 lead.

"I thought it was good, especially after yesterday's loss," Jurica said of the comeback. "We didn't compete very well at the plate and today we did a better job of that."

But Texas (41-8, 21-3) responded quickly. The Longhorns closed the K-State lead to 5-4 in the sixth on a solo home run by
Kevin Keyes, his second of the day. Keyes finished the game going 3-for-3 with 4 RBIs.

In the seventh, the Wildcats fell victim to two errors, allowing Texas to jump ahead again. Texas' Jordan Etier reached on an error by Jurica at shortstop to open the inning, and Cohl Walla reached base after Jurica dropped a throw to second from
Marshall.

Brandon Loy laid a sac bunt down the third-base line, and Tant Shepherd lined out to second base, setting up a decision made by Hill to intentionally walk Russell Moldenhauer to face Keyes with the bases loaded and two outs.

"I tell you what, he (Keyes) likes that situation," Hill said. "He took it really personal when we walked Moldenhauer in front of him. At the same time Moldenhauer has owned us for four years here and I like the right-on-right matchup with the force out at first base."

As he did all series though, Keyes delivered, driving in two runs and giving Texas the lead.

"We got in a bad position there too, with the couple of errors," Hill said. "That's the number one team in the nation. You give (them) a couple of errors in one inning and they are going to capitalize on it and they did."

The Wildcats will have the week off before returning to action on Friday when they take on in-state rival Kansas. The first game of the series is in Lawrence, scheduled for 7 p.m., before returning to Manhattan for the second and third games of the Sunflower Showdown series.

-Photo Manhattan Mercury