Wichita State baseball opens home season with a Lane Haworth walk-off home run win
Call it a gut feeling or maybe Lane Haworth was just trying to speak it into existence.
But when the Wichita State baseball team was trailing by a run entering the final innings of Friday’s game against Cal State Fullerton, the sophomore felt like he knew how the game was going to end.
“I was looking around the dugout and I knew someone was going to walk it off,” Haworth said.
Given the chance to turn the script in his mind into reality, Haworth turned on a first-pitch fastball and sent it sailing well over the 375-foot wall in right-center field for a 2-run, walk-off home run to lift the Shockers to a 5-4 win over Cal State Fullerton on Friday evening.
It was an even better ending than the one he scripted in his head, as Haworth hit the walk-off with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning of WSU’s first game at Eck Stadium this season. It was the first walk-off home run for WSU since Garrett Kocis’ 10th-inning shot to walk off Kansas on March 24, 2022.
“I hit that as hard as I possibly could have,” Haworth said. “When you hit a ball like that, it doesn’t even feel like you hit it. The ball just left. I just went blank after that. I remember rounding third and everyone was waiting for me at home and it was just a surreal moment.”
It was a much-needed jolt for a team sorely in need of a spark, as WSU’s bats had largely been silenced during a disappointing 2-6 start on the road this season.
But with one swing of the bat, Haworth changed the outcome Friday’s game. WSU (3-6) hopes that momentum can carry over to the rest of the series against the Titans (1-8).
“You talk about it all the time, but you’ve got to actually go do it,” WSU head coach Brian Green said. “You talk about belief, you talk about confidence. Well, numbers are confidence and a win like that gives you a lot of belief when you’re trailing for most of the game and then Lane steps up and does that. I was really proud of the guys today because we played really well and were really competitive.”
Haworth’s first home run of the season capped a WSU comeback from a 4-1 deficit in the fifth inning. The Shockers managed to claw one back on a Josh Livingston double in the fifth, then another in the seventh when Gannon Snyder led off with a double and later scored on a fielder’s choice.
WSU’s ninth-inning comeback began when Ryan Callahan led off by taking a 95 mph fastball to the knee. WSU tried to bunt the runner over to second, but a heady play by CSF third baseman Carter Johnstone threw the runner out at second base. An infield ground ball by Jaden Gustafson moved the runner to second, but also recorded WSU’s out.
That brought up Haworth, who came off the bench in the seventh inning for a pinch-hit single. Even though he battled back for a 2-strike single, Haworth had regrets about not swinging at the first-pitch fastball thrown. His second time up, Haworth wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
“When you come off the bench late in the game, you’ve been sitting around for two hours and it’s hard to get loose,” Haworth said. “The best chance you’re going to get to swing is when a guy throws you a heater. And if you’re not sitting on it, then it’s going to blow right by you and you’re going to be down in the count and it’s a struggle from there. So I wasn’t going to let that happen again.”
Sure enough, CSF reliever Jason Krakoski tried to get ahead in the count and threw Haworth a fastball up and in.
“I think all of us probably knew that one was gone as soon as he hit it,” Green said.
Five different relievers combined to blank Cal State Fullerton for the final 4⅔ innings after the Titans tagged starter Brady Hamilton with four earned runs. The bullpen efforts of Hunter Holmes, Caleb Anderson, Tyler Dobbs, Karsen Richard and Aaron Arnold combined for seven strikeouts, two walks and just two hits allowed.
Throw in a walk-off home run and Haworth believes it’s the kind of win that can provide the momentum for a turnaround from a slow start.
“Coming back from Hawaii, we were all a little down and rightfully so because that was not a good week for us at all,” Haworth said. “It felt like coming back home, we had the chance for a fresh slate. (Green) told us don’t worry about the rear-view mirror, treat this week like the start of the season. I think winning the first one at home like we did, from here on out, it’s all up and the Shocks are going to be hot.”
This story was originally published February 28, 2025 at 7:24 PM.
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