SLATE: It’s not been a great week so far for K-State’s athletic teams

Baseball

That was disappointing.

The season sweep was not to be, as K-State fell to Nebraska 8-6 on Tuesday night in Lincoln. The Huskers went up 2-0 early thanks to a hit-by-pitch, two walks, and 6(!) steals and just one hit, despite Kansas State starter Wesley Moore striking out the side. The Cats would tie things up in the 3rd thanks to a couple singles, and then took a 4-2 lead in the top of the 4th thanks to some careless play by the Huskers. But then Nebraska came back, and two triples and a home run gave the home team five runs in the bottom of the 4th to retake the lead at 7-4. K-State again closed the gap in the 5th with two more runs off the bat of Jeff Heinrich, who hit his 8th home run of the season, but Nebraska pushed the lead back out with one more run in the 6th for what would become the 8-6 final score.

With the loss, K-State drops to 21-19, and continues a pattern of very poor performances on the road this season. And it gets no easier this weekend, as the Cats head south to Norman to face a good Oklahoma team that just destroyed KU last weekend. Seriously, in Lawrence on Friday they won 15-2 and Sunday they ran away with a 24-4 win. Yikes. Of course, they did also lose 5-1 to Oral Roberts on Tuesday. :shrug:

Basketball

We’re still waiting for more positive news on the recruiting front, but several important visitors are expected to be in Manhattan this week and weekend, so hopefully good news isn’t that far away.

Ayoka Lee just added another honor to her growing collection, as she was recognized by the Kansas City Sports Commission with the 2022 Children’s Mercy Sports Medicine Center Sportswoman of the Year award. She will receive the award at the 49th annual Kansas City Sports Awards Banquet on June 9.

Football

The exodus from the linebacker room continues, as Kienen Gaskin and Gaven Haselhorst both entered the transfer portal yesterday. Gaskin, a sophomore walk-on from Lee’s Summit, MO and a K-State legacy, played on special teams last season, and made his first career tackle as a reserve linebacker against TCU. Haselhorst was a 3-star recruit out of Hays, KS in 2020, and was expected to become a solid depth piece this season after redshirting last year behind presumed starters Daniel Green and Will Honas. There are now serious future depth issues at linebacker for K-State, with three of the “actual” linebackers on scholarship remaining in their last season of eligibility.

Golf

The Cats may have started strong enough, but they stumbled through the end of the Big 12 Championships that wrapped up yesterday. While the K-State men finished the first round with an 11-over 299 and in tie for 5th with No. 27 KU, they shot a championship-high-tying 19-over 307 in round two to fall down to 7th. The Cats concluded the event with a 16-over 304 final round, dropping two more spots to place ninth overall with a 46-over 910, four strokes ahead of last place West Virginia and ten strokes behind 8th-place Iowa State.

The Cats were led by freshman Nicklaus Mason, as the Kansan finished the event with a 8-over 224, good enough to tie for 25th place. Senior Will Hopkins finished tied for 33rd place at 11-over 227, and Laurenz Schiergen, who had been hot as of late, finished tied for 40th at 14-over 230.

The Cats will now turn their attention to the 2022 NCAA Men’s Golf Selection Show, which will be held on May 4th at 3pm CDT on Golf Channel. K-State, which was on the bubble entering this week, is looking for its first regional selection since 2009. Falling hard in Texas is not going to help their chances.

Other

Okay, this last thing is too awesome to not share. A rare donkey-zebra hybrid — yes, a zonkey — was born recently at the K-State Veterinary Health Center. The little baby zonkey has most features of a donkey, but does have very distinctive zebra stripes on its legs. Very cool!