Cowboys split wild doubleheader with Kansas, fall in series finale

Josh Holliday stood in front of the lectern in the team meeting room holding two different stat sheets and analyzing two polarizing final scores.

One showed a positive outcome, and the pluses — timely offense, collective hitting top to bottom in the lineup and stellar pitching — often tethered to winning. The other, a polar-opposite set of data.

So, OSU head coach Josh Holliday summed it up the best he could. Candidly and as usual.

"You look at it one way and one way only — the series is tied 1-1 going into Game 3," Holliday said. "It's that dynamic of a series. You just had two outcomes in one day instead of having them spread out like it usually is, and it's up to us to come ready to play tomorrow."

Oklahoma State and No. 18 Kansas split a Saturday doubleheader at O'Brate Stadium, with the Cowboys claiming the opener 13-2 on a run rule and the Jayhawks answering in the nightcap 13-3, setting up a Sunday rubber game Kansas won 9-6.

All of it was consolidated into one seven-hour day of baseball.

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"That was weird," OSU sophomore right-hander Stormy Rhodes said. "I've never really experienced something like that. Doubleheaders are one thing, but that was a little different than anything I've experienced."

The optics around what amounted to a makeshift doubleheader — Game 1 a continuation from Friday, Game 2 a fresh start — were abnormal enough. The tale of discrepancies that made up Saturday fit that mold even more.

Play resumed in the series opener on Saturday afternoon with two outs in the bottom of the third inning. The Cowboys (24-15, 8-9 Big 12) nursed a 6-2 lead with any momentum garnered Friday becoming a footnote. OSU had ridden a two-home run effort from Brock Thompson, homers from Alex Conover and Garrett Shull and a seven-strikeout, two-run effort from sophomore left-hander Ethan Lund through three innings of work.

However, the abrupt stoppage ultimately forced the decision on Lund. After Friday's heavy rain delay brought play to a halt, the lengthy downtime disrupted his routine and recovery window to the point where returning him to the mound simply wasn't feasible. Holliday turned to Rhodes in relief.

The result, Holliday said, was as expected — four strikeouts to just two hits in five shutout innings. And it would have been Rhodes' first-career complete game… had the contest not started one day prior.

"Baseball pitchers are not like other athletes in other sports where you can just heat them up and pitch them on the fly," Holliday said. "Their bodies are very high-speed engines. They move very fast. And once we sat for that long, there was no sense in bringing (Lund back).

"Ethan was dominating, the weather halted a really good outing on his part — it happens. Fast-forward to today, our plan was to pitch Stormy in the series with the lead. We had that lead, we went to him and he came in and gave us a fabulous outing. He did a magnificent job for us."

Lund echoed his head coach's sentiment.

"He's got good stuff and he showed why we rely on him in those [high-]leverage moments," he said of Rhodes. "That was big time. That was about as gutsy as it gets."

But as high as the Cowboys rode after victory, such feelings were abruptly halted hours later. Shortly after came Game 2 — the harrowing realm of Holliday's postgame stat sheet.

Tyson LeBlanc's four-hit effort pioneered a thunderous 14-hit attack as the Jayhawks (28-11, 13-4 Big 12) steamrolled OSU to even the series. Starter Mario Pesca was chased after only four innings — allowing eight hits, walking four, and surrendering seven earned runs while striking out five — as OSU's bullpen was prematurely exposed, and the Jayhawks took advantage.

And a career-high 15-strikeout, seven-inning effort allowing just three hits from Kansas junior right-hander Dominic Voegele merely complemented the offensive onslaught. His only blemish was a three-run home run from OSU third baseman Aidan Meola in the bottom of the fourth, which proved to be OSU's final scoring of the nightcap.

"[Voegele] had a Major League slider," Holliday said. "He had a slider that was spinning with over 3,000 RPMs [revolutions per minute], along with a curveball that had our hitters fooled for most of the night. He had a Major League fastball that was sitting 95 to 97 [miles per hour] and a plus-plus changeup. Just a big, big tip of the cap to him."

That contrast, as stark as it appeared on paper, felt sharper in real time. The Cowboys went from executing nearly every phase in the opener to a state of disarray merely hours later. The rhythm they had established behind Lund and Rhodes never quite carried over, and the margin for error shrank quickly against a potent KU lineup and a high-caliber ace in Voegele.

Holliday noted how Saturday underscored the volatile nature of both the sport and the series itself.

Momentum was fleeting, while the same OSU lineup that produced fireworks early on was suddenly off-balance against elite pitching. By the day's end, all of those extremes had evened out, leaving neither side with a true upper hand. Only a decisive Game 3 awaited both teams.

"Game 1 went our way, Game 2 went their way and that's all there is to it," Holliday said. "Each game is its own independent challenge. Game 3 is waiting for us tomorrow, and we've got to come ready to take on that challenge when the time comes."