Texas baseball beats Kansas 5-3, moves win streak to six

Texas Longhorns baseball (19-10) defeated the Kansas Jayhawks (10-15) 5-3 Friday night in the series opener in Lawrence. Texas’ first Big 12 road win of the year also ties the Longhorns longest win streak this year with six straight victories.

Texas starter Nolan Kingham again turned in a solid, but not dominant performance. Kingham, who had an NCAA 10th best 0.72 ERA entering tonight, only allowed four hits and notched five strikeouts in his seven complete innings, but he also hit two batters and allowed a solo homer. The sophomore looked slightly more human than he did in his complete game shutout against Kansas State last weekend, but he was lifted by Texas’ offense.

Kacy Clemens opened the scoring for Texas with a solo shot in the first inning, though Kansas would knot the score at one in the first inning after a Ryan Reynolds error. Texas reclaimed the lead on an RBI single from the red-hot Michael McCann to score Brett Boswell, who had reached on an error.

Kansas fought back, again tying the score in the bottom of the second after star shortstop Matt McClaughlin knocked home a runner who reached base from a hit by pitch.

Texas’ Travis Jones smashed his second double of the game to score two runs in the fourth to make the score 4-2. Though McClaughlin hit a solo shot in the bottom of the inning to tighten the Texas lead to one, the Longhorns’ Ryan Reynolds responded with a solo homer of his own to bring the score to 5-3.

Beau Ridgeway closed the game out for Texas and allowed one hit in the ninth with two outs, but otherwise got the job done to earn a two-inning save and a 5-3 Texas win.

Five of Texas’ hitters had two hit games against some decent pitchers tonight. Kansas starter Sean Rackoski had a 2.84 ERA entering tonight, but in his four complete innings, he allowed six hits, three walks, and four runs (one of which was unearned) to Longhorn hitters. In total, Texas notched 11 hits.

The Longhorns will face the Jayhawks again tomorrow at 2 pm CST in Lawrence. Morgan Cooper is slated to take the mound for Texas.