photo by: Carter Gaskins/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas pitcher Reese Dutton (31) winds up to throw a pitch against Texas Southern Friday, March 1, 2024, at Hoglund Ballpark.

The Kansas baseball team held narrow leads in a pair of road matchups at rival Kansas State on Friday and Sunday but dropped both, falling 2-1 to the Wildcats in a key late-season series in Manhattan.

KU fell to 13-11 in Big 12 Conference play, tied for fifth with Cincinnati, and 27-17 overall, while K-State improved to 12-12 with a 28-19 record on the year.

On Friday, KU ace Reese Dutton was nursing a one-run lead and had thrown 7 2/3 innings, but walked Jaden Parsons on four pitches and then allowed key hits to Kaelen Culpepper and Nick English, the brother of KU standout catcher Jake, that put Kansas State up 3-2.

The Jayhawks did not get the clutch hitting they needed when they came back out for the top of the ninth inning, as they drew three immediate walks against K-State closer Tyson Neighbors, but Neighbors rebounded to strike out a pair of Jayhawks looking and induce one lineout for an improbable save.

“In games like that it’s a game of inches,” KU coach Dan Fitzgerald said in a press release. “They did a better job tonight in the strike zone than we did. They had zero strikeouts offensively, which is actually really impressive for Reese to pitch as well as he did and not strike anyone out. Then, on the flip side I thought our approach at the plate wasn’t fantastic. The Big 12 is the Big 12 and you have to buckle up on Friday night and be ready to go again on Saturday.”

Saturday saw KU’s pitching remain stronger throughout, as the Jayhawks evened the series with a 4-0 win on the back of six shutout innings by freshman Dominic Voegele and a four-out save by Hunter Cranton.

The Jayhawks again led late at Tointon Family Stadium on Sunday, but the Wildcats chipped away and eventually took the lead on another two-out hit by English, who drove in a pair of runs off Cooper Moore in the seventh to put K-State up 4-2. That went down as the final score.

“Three really good ball games, I think it’s great for college baseball in this region of the country and great for college baseball in the state of Kansas,” K-State head coach Pete Hughes said in a press release. “Just the amount of people that showed up in a very emotionally invested weekend, it speaks volumes to where our programs are at. That’s my biggest takeaway.”

As for Fitzgerald’s bunch, the Jayhawks will continue to battle for postseason positioning as host Houston for a series beginning Friday. KU canceled a midweek game for Omaha that was scheduled for Tuesday at Legends Field in Kansas City, the second time a matchup between the two schools has been canceled this year.

Rowing

The Jayhawks had a more favorable result in rowing’s Sunflower Showdown at Wyandotte Lake on Saturday, claiming wins in four of a possible six races in the annual rivalry battle.

The matchup, which also included Creighton, saw KU win the day’s first three events to effectively seal the result, as K-State did not have a boat in the day’s final race.

The biggest difference from last season’s result, when the Wildcats had won for the first time since 2019, was that KU was able to win two of the 8-plus races this year, including the second varsity 8-plus by a margin of just 1.05 seconds, for a combined 15 points in the 17-5 result.

“A whole lot of grit and heart had to be put out on the water in order to bring the trophy back home to Lawrence,” senior Mara Evans said in a press release. “It was such a special day to share with family and friends as we had our last home race.”

In all, the Jayhawks won the first and second 8-plus races and the second and third 4-plus races, while the Wildcats won just the third 8-plus and first 4-plus.

“The best thing we saw today was some of the growth we saw last weekend (at the Lake Wheeler Invite in North Carolina) starting to show up in the single-race plan,” KU coach Carrie Cook-Callen said in the release. “That’s exactly where we need to be. We have a couple of weeks to tune up a little bit more for one more race opportunity to cap the season.”

That opportunity will be at the Big 12 Championship in Sarasota, Florida, on May 19.