photo by: Sarah Buchanan/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas' Mike Koszewski yells in celebration after hitting a walk-off single against BYU on Saturday, May 10, 2025, at Hoglund Ballpark.

The Kansas baseball team showed off its comeback tendencies once again on Saturday, plating two runs in the ninth to walk off BYU 7-6 and set a new program record with its 39th regular-season win of the year.

More importantly, the victory got the Jayhawks a series win over the Cougars and put them in a top-four spot in the Big 12 standings going into the final week of the season (the top four seeds get a first-round bye in the Big 12 Championship). Dariel Osoria led the way with two RBIs and Kansas’ lone home run and Mike Koszewski played hero with a walk-off single in the ninth to end his three-year career at Hoglund Ballpark.

“When you get to this point of (the) season, there are things that I probably make myself more aware of,” head coach Dan Fitzgerald said. “You got to look at the standings going into last weekend, and how does that map out for a Big 12 tournament, and you make some decisions based off that.”

His decisions for the series came mostly in terms of switching up his lineup over the course of the weekend and starting Koszewski for the first time since Feb. 22.

“It was more of if Barth and Francis were going to get a break, it was probably yesterday and today, and the matchup was really good for Mike, and the matchup was really good for (Chase Diggins),” Fitzgerald said. “And those are two guys that we can talk all day long about… those are unbelievably tough, mentally tough individuals.”

After a confident win on Friday night, the Jayhawks came out swinging in Saturday’s rubber match, with Osoria’s two-run home run immediately getting them on the board in the first before two doubles and some BYU fielding woes made for three more runs in the second. But Kansas’ 5-0 lead didn’t last long, as the Cougars returned the favor in the third with a three-run home run that ended starter Kannon Carr’s day on the mound and quickly made it a two-run game. After three and a half innings of zero runners on base, BYU took its first lead of the game in the seventh, as the Cougars tacked on three runs via two home runs off of Eric Lin in his second inning of work.

The Jayhawks loaded the bases in the bottom of the eighth with one out, but ultimately left them stranded and failed to tie the game. But the “never-die Hawks,” as Jackson Hauge had previously termed the team, showed up once again in the ninth, as Kansas grabbed three hits and a walk while only conceding one out to win 7-6 on Koszewski’s walk-off single.

Alex Breckheimer played a huge role for the Jayhawks as well, throwing 2 1/3 innings over the seventh, eighth, and ninth while giving up no runs to earn the win.

“I’m just always trying to stay ready,” Koszewski said postgame. “You never know when your name’s going to get called, and my name was called upon today and I was ready to go… and I’ve never experienced anything like that, it was amazing.”

Both starting pitchers struggled out of the gate, as BYU’s Brett Hansen was done after just 1 1/3 innings of work, while Kannon Carr lasted only an inning longer. Carr battled with 33 pitches in the first inning, where he gave up three walks to load the bases before grabbing his second strikeout of the outing to strand the runners. Meanwhile, Hansen started out much cleaner, grabbing two quick outs around a four-pitch walk, but was hit hard with Osoria’s two-run home run from the cleanup spot to get the Jayhawks out to a 2-0 lead.

Carr settled down in the second after Kansas’ run support, striking out two more batters in a 1-2-3 inning. Diggins kept the line moving for Kansas in the bottom of the second with a single from the No. 9 spot before Brady Ballinger drove him in with a double off the batter’s eye, which knocked Hansen out of the game. After getting a double to drive in Ballinger, Hauge scored the last run of the inning on a fielder’s choice, which gave Kansas an early 5-0 lead.

After a smooth second inning, Carr ran into trouble again in the third, giving up back-to-back singles to start the inning, which led to a three-run home run. An immediate four-pitch walk after this ended his outing as Manning West took over for the last two outs of the inning to keep it a 5-3 game.

The bottom of the third started an abysmal stretch for both teams, as neither recorded a hit until the sixth, when both grabbed leadoff singles but couldn’t make anything of them.

But the seventh inning was a different story as Lin entered his second inning of work. On the first pitch of the inning, Ryder Robinson took Lin deep to make it a one-run game before a hit by pitch put a runner on first. Brock Watson collected the second homer of the inning off of Lin, this time a two-run shot to give the Cougars their first lead of the game, up 6-5. Breckheimer replaced Lin, and gave up a two-out double before buckling down and stopping any further damage.

The Jayhawks started their half of the seventh strong, loading the bases with one out. Sawyer Smith battled with an eight-pitch at-bat looking to capitalize on the inning’s start, but struck out looking on a call that many fans at Hoglund Ballpark disagreed with before Koszewski flew out to left field to end the inning and leave the bases loaded.

Breckheimer returned for the eighth and worked around a leadoff single to keep Kansas within one run, but the Jayhawks once again couldn’t drive in a run and stayed behind heading into the ninth. With Ian Francis taking over behind the plate, Breckheimer took the mound once again for a third inning of work and kept the Cougars from adding on to their lead.

Kansas had one last chance to drive in its first run since the second inning in the bottom of the ninth, as it trailed by one with Osoria, Derek Cerda and Michael Brooks due up. The trio was a combined 2-for-7 with four walks in the game, making them a good option for a last-ditch win. Osoria and Cerda doubled and singled to put runners at the corners with no outs before Brooks walked to load the bases. After striking out with the bases loaded in the seventh, Smith found himself in the same situation, but this time tied the game with a sacrifice fly. Then, in his last game in Hoglund Ballpark after three years as a Jayhawk, Koszewski grabbed his crowning moment of the year with a walk-off single to win the series.

“Mike Koszewski is (an) unbelievable human being,” Fitzgerald said. “I’ve coached him for three years, and he has never complained about one thing… (He) came here and trusted us when we had nothing but a vision to sell, and (he) trusted it and bought into it, and then they were the ones that got to carry out that vision.”

“It’s everything,” Koszewski said. “I feel like I’ve put a lot of heart and lot of energy into the program, just trying to get my best to help us succeed, and just being able to come out here and Fitz having the confidence in me to go out there and compete and help the team win, I think it’s just amazing.”

The Jayhawks will look to make the most out of the games that Koszewski and Fitzgerald have left together, as they head to Morgantown on Thursday to take on a West Virginia team that sits atop the Big 12 standings for a crucial final series of the regular season.