The Jayhawks are taking some momentum into the Big 12 Tournament.
They shut out West Virginia 7-0 in Morgantown, sweeping the Big 12 champs on their home field.
The pitching was one of the highlights of the weekend and Kannon Carr kept it going on Saturday. He went 5 1/3 innings only allowing two hits and Manning West came out of the bullpen finishing the game and did not allow a hit.
Derek Cerda delivered the big hit in the eight inning with a three-run homer giving the Jayhawks a 4-0 lead. They added three more in the ninth and cruised to a seven-run win.
"Great weekend, I'm so proud of the guys," said Kansas head coach Dan Fitzgerald. "I thought our preparation was great and our brains were awesome coming into this."
Fitzgerald couldn't ask for any better performance from his pitching staff. They came up with with big hits at the right time.
"Obviously, we really pitched and had a bunch of timely hitting and played really clean defense," he said. "More than anything, I thought our guys played with complete and total freedom and confidence. They enjoyed all 27 innings, which is something we always set out to do. They were amazing."
Drawing a bye in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament
The Jayhawks will enter the Big 12 Tournament as the number two seed and draw a bye in the first round.
They will face the winner of the Oklahoma State-Baylor game.
KU took the series from Baylor and Oklahoma State this season. They won two of three from Baylor in mid March at Hoglund. Two weeks later they swept Oklahoma State at home.
Oklahoma State has been playing good baseball and find themselves on the bubble of the NCAA Tournament projections. They have won their last three series including a sweep of Arizona State this weekend. They are #45 in the RPI rankings and a strong finish in the Big 12 Tournament would give them hope.
Looking ahead to the NCAA Tournament, there hasn't been any changes to the regional projections since Saturday.
D1 Baseball had KU as a number two seed and that will likely be the trend with most when the next projections come out. KU moved up to #23 in the RPI. They might have had a hand in knocking West Virginia out of hosting a regional.
After losing three to the Jayhawks, West Virginia's RPI has slipped to 28 and there is a chance the Big 12 champ may not host a regional.
The game against the winner of Oklahoma State-Baylor will air on ESPNU at 4 p.m. CT.
