Cowboys sweep Jayhawks
Oklahoma State earned its third Big 12 sweep to remain atop the conference standings with a 4-3 win over Kansas on Sunday in Stillwater.
STILLWATER — Trevor Boone spent Sunday afternoon seeing his Oklahoma State teammates present themselves with scoring opportunities but come up fruitless. He stood in the righthanded batter’s box at Allie P. Reynolds Stadium with another chance in front of him, three fellow Cowboys standing on base.
“Somebody’s gotta come through,” he thought. “It’s gonna happen. All the good things are set up. Just when is it gonna happen?”
Boone supplied the answer to his own question in the seventh inning of OSU’s 4-3 victory over Kansas, smacking a three-run double that proved to be the gamewinner. Boone’s double was OSU’s second hit in 11 at bats with a runner in scoring position. It was the Cowboys’ third two-out, bases-loaded opportunity; the previous two, in the third and sixth, ended in strikeouts.
“If you let the emotion of half the game get you, then you’re in trouble,” OSU coach Josh Holliday said. “The game will come back to you if you stay present, and it came back to us.”
Matched with two victories in a doubleheader Friday, OSU (23-14-1 overall, 12-3 Big 12) earned its third Big 12 sweep to remain atop the conference standings. After beginning league play with a series loss at Texas, the Cowboys have won 11 of their past 12 conference games.
“The thing that’s most exciting is we’re improving,” Holliday said. “We’re a better team than we were.”
Kansas right-hander Jackson Goddard struck out the first seven Cowboy batters as the Jayhawks (19-20, 3-11) scored single runs in three of the first four innings to put OSU in a 3-0 hole.
Goddard and two Kansas relievers combined for six scoreless frames before Ryan Cash began OSU’s seventh-inning rally with a walk off Zack Leban. Andrew Rosa followed with a single, but consecutive flyouts pushed the Cowboys to nine hitless at bats with a runner in scoring position.
Jon Littell’s first-pitch single got the Cowboys on the board. Christian Funk, who had eight RBI in Friday’s doubleheader, walked to load the bases for Boone. The sophomore outfielder fell behind 0-2 before taking a slider narrowly outside the zone. He then sent Leban’s elevated fastball into the right-center wall.
Boone arrived at second base, clapped four times, squatted and flexed. As the Cowboys celebrated in front of their dugout, C.J. Varela declared the game over.
Varela entered the game in relief of Jonathan Heasley in the top half of the frame and managed to leave the bases loaded, requiring 17 pitches to hold the deficit.
With momentum on the Cowboys’ side, he needed only 15 pitches for the final six outs.
“After Boone’s double, I thought we had won the game,” Varela said. “I thought they had lost after that.”
Sunday’s victory continued a trend in series finales for the Cowboys. Heasley, OSU’s third weekend starter, allowed at least four earned runs in five straight starts before holding the Jayhawks to three runs in six innings Sunday. Despite his struggles, the Cowboys have managed comeback victories in each of his past four outings.
“We’re just kind of the Comeback ’Boys this year, especially these Sunday games,” Heasley said. “I don’t think there was a single guy in the dugout that thought we were gonna lose that game.”