Kansas State baseball scored nine runs in a three-inning span Sunday, backing Lincoln Sheffield’s quality start and clinching the Amegy Bank College Baseball Series title with a 10-2 defeat over No. 22 TCU at Globe Life Stadium.
The Wildcats (4-4) scored four runs in the fifth, with all of them coming with two outs, performing at the highest level for a third straight Top 25 win in as many days.
“Our mindset was to treat this four-team tournament like a regional,” head coach Pete Hughes said to K-State Athletics. “Proud of how our boys embraced that mindset.”
Left-handed pitcher Sheffield dazzled in his outing, pitching seven innings and allowing just one run while striking out eight batters.
The key to Kansas State’s success throughout the series in Arlington had been their pitching, especially the starters. Sheffield continued that momentum and took it to another level with his performance.
“Lincoln [Sheffield] set the tone for the entire game immediately. It was as efficient as an outing can be at our level,” Hughes said. “His tempo and command were the keys in keeping a potent TCU offense at Bay.”
Maximus Martin led the ‘Cats offensively as he had three hits at the plate and three RBI. Martin knocked in the first run of the game in the fourth inning to give K-State a 1-0 lead.
Shintaro Inoue also had a three-hit day for the Wildcats as he had an RBI of his own and scored two runs.
In the fifth inning, the Wildcats had runners on first and second with one out. The Wildcats then attempted a double steal with Dee Kennedy at the plate. On the pitch, Kennedy swung and missed to strike out but the Horned Frog catcher air-mailed the throw down to third allowing another K-State run to come in.
That error proved costly for TCU as K-State would capitalize on it scoring three more runs in the inning to expand the lead to 5-0.
“It’s always nice when you can support a really good start from your pitcher with a big offensive night. We were good with runners on base and great with two outs,” Hughes said.
The Wildcats indeed were great with two outs as six of their 10 runs came with two outs.
In the sixth, the Horned Frogs got their first and only run off Sheffield with a sacrifice fly but Sheffield bounced back and struck out the hitter to end the threat.
With the game at 5-1 entering the seventh, K-State rattled off five more runs to blow the game open at 10-1. Nick English and Shintaro Inoue both hit doubles in the inning to help rally for five runs.
TCU scored in the eighth but it did not harm as that was the final run of the game and the Wildcats had secured the weekend sweep.
The Wildcats went the entire game without committing an error which they did all weekend, failing to surrender an error over the three-game tournament.
“You always give yourself a chance to win when you don’t make errors, especially over a weekend. That’s the level of defense we are capable of playing all the time, so that was fun to see,” Hughes said.
The Wildcats started 1-4 and have now picked things up and with the three wins have moved their record to .500.
“It was a good three days and a long year ahead of us to improve in a lot of areas,” Hughes said.
K-State will return to Texas to play in another four-team series with another highly ranked opponent, No. 3 LSU, waiting for them on Friday, February 28. The first pitch against the Tigers is at 2 p.m.
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