Jayhawks want out of cellar

KU needs to win two in final series of season

Kansas University players dot top spots on the Big 12 Conference baseball leaderboard.

Ryan Baty paces the league in hits and doubles. Travis Metcalf is No. 1 on the home run chart. And Matt Baty is the Big 12 stolen-bases pacesetter.

Yet if the Jayhawks don’t win at least two of three games from Kansas State this weekend, they’ll finish in the league basement.

“It’s been a tough season,” second-year KU coach Ritch Price said. “We’ve had 15 losses where we had the lead in the eighth or ninth inning. If we’d won half those, we might have qualified for the NCAAs.”

Kansas, 4-19 in Big 12 games, and Kansas State, 4-20, will play three games — the first at 7 tonight at Hoglund Ballpark and the other two on Saturday (7 p.m.) and Sunday (2 p.m.) at Tointon Stadium in Manhattan.

All three games will be broadcast on KLWN 1320 radio.

“The big thing is we want to win the series,” Price said. “We won the Missouri series last week, and if we win the K-State series it will make a statement that we’re making progress.”

Winning all three games would enable the Jayhawks (28-31-1) to finish with a .500 record.

Five seniors — Ryan Baty, Matt Tribble, Ryan Knippschild, Kyle Kilgo and Chris Smart — will be suiting up for the last time at Hoglund Ballpark tonight.

Tonight will probably also be the last game in Hoglund Ballpark for third baseman Travis Metcalf, a fourth-year junior who is expected to be selected in June’s free agent draft. Metcalf leads the Big 12 with 18 home runs, a KU single-season record.

Another junior who has drawn scouts’ interest and may be tempted to turn pro is catcher Sean Richardson, a junior-college transfer from Vista, Calif., who is hitting .338 with 12 home runs and a team-high 67 RBI.

Junior left-hander Mike Zagurski (4-4, 5.50 ERA) will start tonight’s game. In Manhattan, Price will open with junior right-hander Clint Schambach (4-3, 4.83 ERA) Saturday and lefty Knippschild (6-8, 5.26 ERA) Sunday.

While the Jayhawks have boasted one of the league’s most potent offenses, K-State ranks last in the league in team batting average (.261) and slugging percentage. The ‘Cats are also last in fielding percentage (.963) and share last place in ERA with Kansas (5.80).

Brad Hill, a former Kansas University aide, is in his first season as head coach at Kansas State after building Central Missouri State into an NCAA Div. II power. Hill was an assistant coach under Dave Bingham when KU went to the College World Series in 1993.