The Friday night lights turned on for Kansas State as they matched up against Oklahoma State in game one of the ‘Cats second home series of the week.

The Wildcats started James Guyette on the hill, who pitched seven innings and gave up three runs on three hits. Guyette had a career high 12 strikeouts as well, bolstering K-State to a 11-3 win against the Cowboys.

“[Bear Madliak] he knows what calms me down, what makes me laugh, what gets me in the zone, everything like that,” Guyette said. “And then we were just able to work well together.”

Guyette didn’t allow Oklahoma State to score in the first, leaving two on base on one hit. The righty pitcher struck out the four and five hole batters both on swings and misses. 

Stepping into the box for the first round, Dee Kennedy kept his composure after seeing six pitches and taking his base. Kennedy’s aggressive baserunning got him to second and then to third as Shintaro Inoue reached first on a dropped third strike. 

The next two Wildcat batters Carlos Vasquez and Ty Smolinski had back-to-back strikeouts, calling Bear Madliak up to the plate. 

In between pitches of Madliak’s at-bat, Inoue reached a large lead, getting caught in a pickle, but was called safe after his dive back to first. During the frenzy, Kennedy made a mad dash for the plate and slid safely into home. With Madliak still at the plate, he made contact under the ball, popping up to the shortstop on a 2-0 count and ending the first inning 1-0 K-State.

Oklahoma State made its scoring debut of the night after Guyette walked and hit a batter, setting up the orange and black for a three-run spurt. As Guyette made a throwing error, the Cowboys’ Garrett Shull reached second, scoring Colin Bruggemann from second and advancing TP Wentworth from first to third base. 

The Oklahoma State lineup continued to put a bat to the ball, grounding out to short, scoring Wentworth and pushing Shull to third. The final run of the three would include Shull scoring as Alex Conover grounded out to second base. K-State closed out the inning after another Cowboy grounded out to Guyette this time, ending Oklahoma State’s scoring run on no hits and one error.

As Oklahoma State led 3-1 after the top of the second, K-State needed to get the bats going, but wasn’t able to find any gaps. The Cowboys’ Ethan Lund took care of business with no runs and no hits to keep their lead.

In the third, Guyette managed responsibilities, facing three batters and allowing his teammates to do their duties as well in a simple three-up, three-down inning.

The Cowboys put Inoue on base in the bottom half, who eventually reached third with his quickness on two wild pitches. On a 3-1 count, Vasquez spliced an RBI double down the third base line to score Inoue and put the Wildcats within one, 3-2. 

In the top of the fourth inning, Guyette did the same on the mound as he did during the top of the third — shutting out three Oklahoma State batters. 

The fourth inning was the biggest scoring inning, as the K-State lineup truly played into its nickname, the Bat Cats. Micah Kendrick doubled to right field, scoring Evasco, who was posted up on second base. Kendrick scored from second after Kennedy singled to left field with two outs on the board. 

Oklahoma State took a mound visit later in an effort to compose their game, but Smolinski walked, scoring Kennedy and advancing the other Wildcats on base. The Cowboys would take another mound visit, replacing Lund with Jake Kennedy. But who was on the mound didn’t matter to Madliak, who barreled up for a two-RBI single to center field, scoring Inoue. Swinging on a 0-2 count, Evasco closed the third with K-State in the lead 7-3. 

“Well, it was critical because we chipped away at that lead when we were behind three to one,” K-State head coach Pete Hughes said. “We chipped away and got close, and then we got some big two out hits. We got a big two out hit by Bear [Madliak and] Micah Kendrick got a big head, and we were able to extend the inning, but really our self discipline and control of the strike zone is what really built that inning for us.”

Inning five was desolate for both teams, as each lineup managed one hit and left two batters on base.

Throughout the sixth and seventh innings, the Wildcats added on four runs. During the sixth, Madliak made contact with a pitch on a 2-1 count, sending an RBI single to left field. The other three runs came in the seventh, starting with a solo homer by Inoue. The second run would come from an Evasco RBI to send Vasquez home. The third and final run of the game came from Smolinski as he scored on a wild pitch from the Cowboys’ Parker Jennings. With the added runs, K-State led 11-3.

“We’ve been relentless the whole year,” Guyette said. “Some things just didn’t happen to go our way, whether it was weak little hits and things [like] balls falling when we’re pitching or we’re hitting balls hard right at people and just it’s not working out. But today, we’re still fighting just as hard, and things just happen to go our way.”

The eighth and ninth were silenced by both pitching staffs. K-State changed pitchers at the beginning of the eighth, replacing Guyette for Adam Arther. Arther would go one inning on the mound, striking out three of five batters faced, giving up two hits and no runs. 

Jennings combated the Wildcats’ performance, striking out Kenderick, and getting a groundout from Cadyn Karl, along with a pop up from Kennedy. 

K-State made a final pitching change going into the ninth, switching Arther with Aaron Arnold. Arnold would face three batters, striking out two and helping close out the game for the Wildcat win.

Guyette claimed the win, bringing his season record to 5-1. The Wildcats move to 22-12 overall and 6-7 in Big 12 play. Game two of this matchup is set for 4 p.m. on April 11.

After losing the past three sets of series games, K-State looks to officially take care of business and secure a series win.

“If you don’t play clean baseball, things can turn into a big inning, and that’s what we need to be cognizant about tomorrow,” Hughes said. “Stay hungry and stay greedy and realize that you have an opportunity to win a series at home. You run for it. And I don’t think we did that last weekend.”