KU claims 26th come-from-behind win of season in Big 12 baseball quarterfinals
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- Kansas secured 26th comeback win with 7-6 walk-off over Oklahoma State.
- Brady Ballinger’s 3-run homer and Mike Koszewski’s single capped 4-run rally.
- KU advanced to Big 12 semifinal vs. TCU after bullpen delivered five shutout frames.
No. 2 seed Kansas rallied from a four-run deficit in the seventh inning to upend No. 7 seed Oklahoma State 7-6 in a Big 12 baseball championship quarterfinal contest on Thursday afternoon at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
KU’s sixth walk-off victory of the 2025 season propelled the Jayhawks (43-14) into a Friday semifinal clash against No. 3-seed TCU. The Horned Frogs (37-17) defeated Houston 7-1 in a quarterfinal contest on Thursday night.
First pitch for KU-TCU is 7:30 p.m. Friday with a live telecast on ESPN+. The Jayhawks went 0-3 against the Horned Frogs in a three-game series April 11-13 in Fort Worth, Texas. The Horned Frogs outscored KU 25-6 in that series.
Trailing 6-2 in the seventh in the quarterfinal clash Thursday, the Jayhawks scored four runs — capped by a three-run home run from Brady Ballinger — to tie the game.
Two innings later, with the score deadlocked at 6-6, Mike Koszewski singled to shallow left with the bases loaded and one out to score Tommy Barth and give Kansas the walk-off victory, its 26th come-from-behind win of the season. KU improved to 10-2 in one-run games.
“Twenty-six come-from-behind wins — that’s a little much. I got a few more gray hairs than I did in January, but it’s a special group,” KU coach Dan Fitzgerald said after the game.
“There’s just a looseness to them and no one more descriptive of that than Mike Koszewski,” Fitzgerald added of the senior from Oak Brook, Illinois, who belted the game-winning hit in the ninth.
“He has been a regular every day guy since the minute we got here (three seasons ago) and he’s played a different role this year. You talk about a leader You talk about a guy that is selfless and is the epitome of what a great teammate should be. That’s what it looks like.”
Alex Breckheimer, who threw 2 2/3 scoreless innings, earned the win, improving his record to 5-0. Breckheimer and Manning West combined for five shutout innings out of the bullpen.
Starter Dominic Voegele allowed six runs on five hits in four innings. He struck out four and walked four against a red-hot OSU team that entered with 10 wins in its last 11 games. The Cowboys (28-23) were preseason picks of the conference coaches to win the Big 12.
“They love baseball and they love competing,” Fitzgerald said of his Jayhawks, who continued to build a case to be one of 16 regional hosts for the upcoming NCAAs. “They’re amazing teammates and they love being together. They truly love each other and there’s just a belief inside of our dugout that we can do it. I did tell them when it was 6-2 in the seventh, ‘Guys, you know what we’re going to do. I would prefer we do something about it now instead of waiting until the ninth.’”
Ballinger, a sophomore first baseman from Las Vegas, had two hits in four at bats — including his 16th home run of the year and a double — with four of KU’s seven RBIs.
On Thursday Ballinger became the second player in program history to score 70 runs in a season when he scored on his homer in the seventh. Ballinger now has 70 runs scored. Joe DeMarco (1996) is the only other player in program history to score 70 or more runs in a season with 76.
Ballinger recorded his 24th multi-hit game of the season. He also registered his 14th multi-RBI game.
Right fielder Jackson Hauge, a senior from Ramsey, Minnesota, was 2-for-4 with a homer, his 19th, and one RBI. The 19 home runs are second most in a season in KU history. Tony Thompson is all-time HR leader with 21 in 2009.
Second baseman Michael Brooks, who formerly played at Arkansas and UCF, was 2-for-3 with a walk.
“I think we’ve said it over and over again that we are the ‘Never Say Die Hawks.’ We truly believe in that,” Hauge said of the Jayhawks, who have clubbed a school-record 100 home runs. The old record was 75, set in 2023 and 2006.
“We are going to get ours when the time comes. You never lose. You just run out of time. We take it pitch to pitch, at-bat to at-bat, make it a team game and good things happen when you do that,” Hauge added.
West Virginia, the top seed, will meet No. 4 seed Arizona in the other semifinal at 4 p.m. Friday.
This story was originally published May 23, 2025 at 10:19 AM with the headline "KU claims 26th come-from-behind win of season in Big 12 baseball quarterfinals."
