After losing its previous five games, Kansas State baseball finally got back in the win column, 14-8, against Wichita State on Tuesday at Tointon Family Stadium.
The Wildcats (24-17) had four different players hit a home run, including two each from Shintaro Inoue and Dee Kennedy.
The Shockers (12-28) scored the game’s first run, but for the next five innings, Wichita State would remain scoreless. K-State pitcher Tanner Duke was partly responsible for this, as he had a solid outing on the mound.
Inoue hit a home run in the bottom of the first to get things going for K-State. Then, in the bottom of the second, right fielder AJ Evasco homered the ball to right center.
The homerun from Evasco allowed first baseman David Bishop to reel in a run, but Bishop had even bigger plans in the bottom of the fourth, as he would hit the Wildcats’ third homerun of the evening.
Third basemen Dee Kennedy wanted in on the homerun action too, as he slammed one over the left centerfield wall. By the end of the fifth inning, the Wildcats had an 8-1 lead.
“We got our bats going again, they’ve been MIA here for a little while,” head coach Pete Hughes said. “Happy for our guys for sticking with the game and getting on the other side of it.”
Wichita State did not go down easily, though, scoring three runs in the top of the sixth. Sadly, for the Shockers, Inoue was not finished. The infielder from Japan hit another home run to widen the gap a little more. An impressive steal and run from Kennedy added fuel to the fire, and the Wildcats led 11-4 at the end of the sixth.
“I always judge a good team by the way they play five runs up or five runs down,” said coach Hughes. “We’ve got to learn to finish people off, finish games, and not look at the scoreboard.”
The Shockers plated three more runs in the seventh and one in the eighth, but the Wildcats continued to hit the ball with consistency. After Kennedy hit his second home run of the night in the bottom of the eighth, fans in Tointon had a good feeling the game was going to end in K-State’s favor, as it did.
The Wildcats’ homestand continues with Houston coming to town for K-State’s Alumni Weekend, starting on Friday at 6 p.m.
