Senior Jack Strunc didn”t leave anything to chance and helped secure Creighton’s Big East Championship. (Spomer / WBR) CLICK TO BUY
All season long Creighton’s players and coaches have alluded to there being a “bigger game out there” for them to play. Saturday’s regular season finale against Villanova wasn’t it, according to them, but it was a big step in that direction as the Bluejays earned an 8-2 win over the Wildcats to claim their third outright Big East regular season title since joining the conference six years ago.
Two seniors sparked the day as shortstop Jack Strunc drove in three runs in the first three innings while starting pitcher Evan Johnson struck out seven and walked just one over six shutout innings to help the Jays finish with a 14-4 record in league play — two games ahead of Xavier in the win column — to clinch the title on the final day. Had Creighton dropped just one game this weekend they would have finished in second place based on percentage points. They responded to the lack of margin for error with a three-game sweep to finish the regular season with a 35-11 overall record.
“I’m very proud of them,” CU skipper Ed Servais said. “The expectations were really high for them this week. A lot of people looked at the records and said there is no way Creighton is going to lose to Villanova, but people who say that don’t know baseball. Villanova had won the first game of a series four times in conference and they had played very close in many other games.
“We warned our guys to not get caught up in the record and to play according to our ability. For the most part they did.”
The Bluejays were celebrating after the win (Spomer / WBR) CLICK TO BUY
Johnson was a steadying force on the mound from his first pitch until his last. Not only did he not allow more than a single baserunner, at most, in any of his six innings of work, but no Villanova player even reached second base against him all afternoon. A two-out single in the first, a two-out walk in the second, a one-out singles in the third and fourth, and a hit batter with one out in the sixth. That’s all.
And for the second consecutive outing he had better results the second time through the order than he did the first. Between his start against St. John’s last Sunday and Saturday afternoon against the Wildcats, hitters went 2-for-17 at the plate with just one walk and seven strikeouts the second time they faced stood in against the 5-foot-11, 190-pound right-hander. Both hits were singles and the furthest any runner got was second base.
“It just has to do with getting comfortable,” Johnson said of his success in turning over a lineup. “The first time through order you’re still trying to get a feel for stuff, but once you are out there for a little while it gets easier. You start throwing things for strikes. You learn every time you go out there. You go out there for an inning, you learn from that, then you apply it to the next inning. You don’t go backwards.”
Villanova’s first run of the day didn’t come until three batters after Johnson exited the game. Backup catcher Will Reiner reached on a two-out single to left field, then scored on a double to deep center field off the bat of third baseman John Heilenbach to cut Creighton’s lead to 4-1 in the seventh inning.
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Photos from the game courtesy of Mike Spomer
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That served as a wake-up call for CU’s bats, however, as the top of the order went to work in the bottom half of the frame and didn’t rest until they had hung a four-spot on the board to increase the lead to 8-1. Singles by left fielder Parker Upton and first baseman Jake Holton put runners on the corners with nobody out. Right fielder Will Robertson grounded into a fielder’s choice to plate Upton, and ended up at second after a wild throw to first as Villanova tried to turn a 4-6-3 double play.
Jack Strunc popped out on the infield for the second out, but three two-out hits — an RBI double by third baseman Jordan Hovey, an RBI triple by catcher David Vilches, and an RBI single by center fielder Will Hanafan — from the bottom of the Bluejay lineup capped off the inning and put the game out of reach.
“We had a little bit of a lull in the middle of the game,” Servais said. “We weren’t having a lot of great at-bats during that part of the game. When they came back and got the double to right-center to score their run I think the guys realized that we still have some game to be played here and a three-run lead is not insurmountable.”
The Creighton Bullpen slammed the door against Villanova (Spomer / WBR) CLICK TO BUY
Relief pitchers Ryan Connolly, Mitch Boyer, and Bobby Kametas combined to retire six of the eight batters they faced over the final two innings to kick off a mild celebration near the mound. They gave the accomplishment of winning a regular season title its due, but they are not satisfied just yet.
“It’s still out there,” Robertson said of the ‘bigger game’ that is still on everyone’s mind. “Our goal in the fall and our goal still, I’ll say it again, we want to get to a regional and that’s still not guaranteed. The big game is still out there.”
Robertson, a junior who will likely set his sights on professional baseball once the 2019 season comes to a close, and the rest of his teammates want to leave no remaining doubt. That means doing something no Creighton team before them has yet to accomplish by winning the Big East Tournament, which for CU will get underway against No. 4 seed Seton Hall at Prasco Park in Mason, Ohio on Friday, May 24.
Most, if not all, projections have this year’s Creighton team safely in the 64-team for the 2019 NCAA Tournament, but no one on the roster seems willing to admit that they have much faith in any of that stock at the moment.
“The year before I got here they thought they were going to get in, but they got second [in the conference tournament], and missed [the NCAA Tournament],” Robertson recalls. “Knowing that in the back of my mind, I think we need to leave no doubt and go to Mason and win it. That’s in all of our minds.”