{"id":10663,"date":"2012-03-06T22:15:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T04:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=10663"},"modified":"2012-03-06T22:15:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-07T04:15:00","slug":"jayhawks-take-home-opener-7-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2012\/03\/06\/jayhawks-take-home-opener-7-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Jayhawks Take Home Opener, 7-4"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Blake Schuster<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Nelly\u2019s song \u201cHere Comes the Boom\u201d blasted through the Hoglund ballpark speakers, senior third baseman Zac Elgie strolled up to the plate in the bottom of the first, with the bases loaded, and no outs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Zac Elgie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The song wasn\u2019t merely to pump up Elgie in the Jayhawks home opener; it was a warning to the North Dakota Fighting Sioux.<\/p>\n

After letting his first pitch \u2014 a ball \u2014 sail by without flinching, Elgie dug in and ripped a 1-0 fastball that hung around the windy left field sky before eventually flying out of the park.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was coming into the game thinking no one was going to hit a home run,\u201d Elgie said, Michael Suitor belted another in the bottom of the third. \u201cWith the wind howling in as hard as it was, we were hitting balls well in batting practice and they weren\u2019t going anywhere near the warning track. I was just trying to see the ball deep and put a good swing on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The grand slam was the first of Elgie\u2019s career and the first for Kansas since Brandon Macias smacked one against Texas Tech in 2010.<\/p>\n

It was Elgie\u2019s grand slam that ended up being the difference in Kansas\u2019 7-4 victory over the Fighting Sioux.<\/p>\n

But hitting the ball hasn\u2019t been a problem for the Jayhawks lately; rather it\u2019s poor pitching that has put Kansas out of winnable games early in the 2012 campaign.<\/p>\n

Yet \u2014 at least for today \u2014 it seemed the Jayhawks\u2019 pitchers were able to get back on the track that had Kansas sitting atop the Big 12 in ERA.<\/p>\n

After slumping through a three-game losing streak, Kansas\u2019 pitchers allowed only six hits to the Fighting Sioux. It was a much-needed recovery after yielding a minimum of 10 hits during that losing streak.<\/p>\n

Freshman pitcher Robert Kahana record four perfect innings in his first career start en route to his first career win. Tanner Poppe recorded his second save of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went out in the first inning just trying to throw strikes,\u201d Kahana said, who was only scheduled to pitch four innings in preparation for this weekend’s series. \u201cMy offense went out and gave me some breathing room.\u201d<\/p>\n

After shortstop Kevin Kuntz and second baseman Kai\u2019ana Eldridge walked to start off the bottom of the first, right fielder Tucker Tharp placed a perfect bunt down the third baseline to load up the bases before Elgie came up and cleared them.<\/p>\n

Every Kansas batter in the starting lineup batted in first inning, the second time this season Kansas has had all nine hitters get an at-bat in one inning \u2014 Kansas batted around in the first inning against Mississippi Valley State on February 26th.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that we\u2019ve been able to get outside and see live pitching has been a big help to get us going,\u201d Elgie said of Kansas\u2019 offensive outburst \u2014 Kansas had 12 hits against UND .<\/p>\n

The only blemish on the night came from Lawrence native Colin Toalson, who in his second appearance as a Jayhawk went one inning with four hits, three earned runs, and two strikeouts. However, that didn\u2019t stop his replacement, Jordan Jakubov, from praising the potential in the Free State High School grad, Toalson.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time Toalson leaves here, he\u2019ll be one of the best pitchers on the staff,\u201d Jakubov said. \u201cThat\u2019s pitching. You have your up\u2019s and down\u2019s, but it\u2019s just how you bounce back from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

-Edited by C.J. Matson<\/em><\/p>\n

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\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Blake Schuster As Nelly\u2019s song \u201cHere Comes the Boom\u201d blasted through the Hoglund ballpark speakers, senior third baseman Zac Elgie strolled up to the plate in the bottom of the first, with the bases loaded, and no outs. The song wasn\u2019t merely to pump up Elgie in the Jayhawks home opener; it was a warning to the North Dakota Fighting Sioux. After letting his first pitch \u2014 a ball \u2014 sail by without flinching, Elgie dug in and ripped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":10665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Elgie_Zac_mug.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}