Baseball

The Tenth Inning: Creighton Drops Series to Shockers

Series: Wichita State wins 2-1

Creighton: 32-12, 10-5 MVC

The Creighton Bluejays brought a 31-10 record into this past weekend’s series at Wichita State, which tied for the program’s best record through 41 games. One of the previous 31-10 teams, the 1991 squad, went on to make Creighton baseball history, qualifying for the College World Series.

But that team couldn’t figure out a way to win against Wichita State. The ’91 Bluejays went 0-8 against WSU, with the Shockers handing Creighton its two losses in the CWS, too.

More recently, Ed Servais’ squads entered the weekend 11-19 against Wichita State. His Jays took a three-game lead in the Valley baseball standings into Kansas, but the Shockers cut their deficit to one with the series win.

The highly touted CU pitching staff gave up 25 runs in the three game series. After being shutout 8-0 Friday night but bouncing back to win 7-5 on Saturday, the Jays began Sunday’s rubber match down 10-0 after four innings. What began as a chance to bury the Shockers in the Valley race for the regular season title ended with Wichita State down just one game with two weekends of conference action remaining.

Wichita State 8, Creighton 0

In what John Bishop and David Gustafson were convinced on air was one of the quickest Creighton losses in recent memory, the Bluejays picked up just five hits and plated zero runs in the shutout loss — the program’s first shutout since the Shockers blanked the Bluejays last May in Omaha.

Ty Blach, one of the league’s leading pitchers, surrendered a career-high 13 hits and allowed 6 runs. His teammates on offense couldn’t contribute much to his cause, with Trever Adams’ first inning single the only hit for Creighton through five innings.

Tyler Grimes collected 4 hits in the leadoff spot for WSU, while Chris O’Brien (2), Johnny Coy (2), Tyler Coughenour (2), and Preston Springer (3) also had multi-hit games for the Shockers.

Creighton 7, Wichita State 5

Despite some late-game histrionics, the Creighton Bluejays bounced back from Friday’s shutout with a win against Wichita State. Kurt Spomer struck out the last two batters of the game with the tying runs on base, securing Jonas Dufek’s eighth win of the season.

Dufek went 7 innings and struck out 12 Shockers, while issuing just one walk and surrendering 3 runs on 7 hits. Alex Staehely delivered the big blow offensively, hitting a three-run homer in the fifth inning off of WSU’s Brian Flynn.

Every batter in the Bluejays starting lineup collected at least one hit.

Wichita State 12, Creighton 3

Creighton allowed a dozen Wichita State runs Sunday, thanks to wildness and clutch hitting by the Shockers. It was the highest run total allowed by the Bluejays all season, and the win allowed WSU to creep to within one game of CU in the Valley standings.

Greg Hellhake started the game for the Bluejays but lasted just two innings, during which he issued four free passes and gave up four runs. The Shockers posted back-to-back four-run innings in the third and fourth frames, jumping out to a 10-0 lead and leaving the Jays shaking their heads at another weekend series loss to Wichita State.

Offensively, the Bluejays could only muster six hits off WSU’s Josh Smith. Meanwhile, the Shockers record only one more hit (11) than walk (10).

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