Wichita State baseball rallies for road series win over American’s top team
This two-week stretch in April looked like the kind that could make, or break, the season for the Wichita State baseball team.
Eight consecutive road games against top-50 RPI teams left little room for a fragile team to fake its way through. So when the Shockers walked into Birmingham and dropped Friday’s opener in crushing fashion, it would have been easy to imagine the weekend turning into something much worse.
Instead, Wichita State answered with its toughest baseball of the season, rallying to win the final two games and claim a road series over conference-leading UAB. The payoff was significant: The Shockers left Alabama at 23-14 overall and 7-5 in conference play, now just one game out of first place in the American.
For Wichita State coach Brian Green, the significance of the weekend was not hard to define.
“It was the most important weekend of the year,” Green said. “You’re looking at this stretch coming up, all eight on the road against top-50 competition, and we’re kind of limping in. If you don’t compete, it could be a really brutal stretch. So for us, it really was the biggest weekend of the year. To come down here and win the series on the road after going down 1-0, that says a lot about our guys.”
UAB entered the weekend at No. 28 in the RPI, riding eight-game winning streaks both at home and in conference play. WSU, meanwhile, came in with an RPI of No. 194 and enough question marks to wonder how it would hold up against one of the hottest teams in the league on the road. Instead of getting exposed, the Shockers proved something to the rest of the conference.
“I am genuinely so proud of this club right now,” Green said. “That was maybe our best baseball in a month. This was a big turn for us these last 48 hours. We’re leaving here a much better team than we were a week ago in terms of toughness and confidence.”
What made Wichita State’s response so impressive was how close Friday came to becoming the kind of loss that can linger.
The Shockers dropped the opener 4-3 after UAB broke a 3-3 tie with a run in the eighth inning, then ended WSU’s final threat in agonizing fashion in the ninth. Pinch-hitter Nolan Ganter lined a two-out hit into the gap in left-center, but tried to stretch it into a double and was thrown out at second base by inches to end the game. With Jack Quick, one of WSU’s hottest hitters, waiting on deck, the missed chance stung.
“It was just a bad play,” Green said. “Nolan has to stay home there. He’s an average runner at best and he went for it and got thrown out. It was a really frustrating way to lose. So that was a mistake, but I challenged our guys to let it go and come back the next day and I’m really proud of their response.”
Wichita State evened the series with a 5-4 win in 10 innings on Saturday, outlasting UAB in a tense back-and-forth game that demanded both execution and nerve. After the Blazers tied the score in the bottom of the ninth, the Shockers punched right back in the 10th when Owen Rush delivered a two-out RBI single to center that scored Quick with the go-ahead run.
Brady Pacha then slammed the door, pitching around a two-out double in the bottom half and striking out Baylor Roberts looking to end it. Green pointed to that game as an example of the identity WSU is still trying to sharpen.
“Pacha is just tough as nails,” Green said. “He’s got ice water in his veins. That was a huge win for us, down 1-0 and we don’t cave. Really proud of our toughness. That’s something we’re really trying to get better at, becoming a tougher team.”
Saturday also required WSU to dig deep on the mound.
Dax Sharp opened with three scoreless innings, then Brady Hamilton followed with four innings of relief in one of his most important outings of the season, allowing three runs but none earned. Green has recently adjusted Hamilton’s role, first using him as a starter in the midweek game against Kansas State and then deploying him in relief Saturday to spell Sharp. Green said that pairing may be something WSU leans on moving forward.
That mattered because by the time Sunday arrived, Green had already used a lot of his best options to secure Saturday’s win. The pitching staff has been stretched thin and the Shockers badly needed Johnny Nuanez to provide length in the finale.
There was just one problem: It was not clear all weekend if Nuanez would even be well enough to pitch.
Green said the junior right-hander had been extremely sick at the team hotel on both Friday and Saturday, throwing up throughout the weekend. Green even told Nuanez to stay behind from Saturday’s game and focus only on resting in hopes he could recover enough to start the series finale.
When Sunday came, Nuanez did far more than simply gut through it. He authored the best start of WSU’s season, carrying scoreless ball into the seventh inning and giving the Shockers 6 2/3 innings of five-hit, two-run baseball with five strikeouts and two walks in a 10-2 win that sealed the series.
“You talk about a gutty performance when the team absolutely needed it,” Green said. “I mean, he was dominant out there. Pumping the fastball, great command, great intensity. And we absolutely needed it. Our pitching was fantastic all weekend.”
Nuanez’s outing did more than quiet UAB’s lineup. It preserved WSU’s bullpen at the exact moment the Shockers most needed it. With Pacha and Hamilton already heavily used, Nuanez lasting deep into the seventh allowed Green to finish the game with Hayashi, Brady Owens and Caleb Reed instead of burning through even more arms.
And by then, Wichita State’s offense had already broken the game open.
Ganter, the same player whose baserunning mistake ended Friday’s loss, authored the loudest redemption arc of the weekend. Entering Sunday with no home runs this season, he launched two of them against UAB, including a towering two-run shot in the eighth that started the decisive late barrage. He finished with three hits, while Gutierrez also collected three hits in the finale.
WSU led only 3-2 entering the eighth after Austin Pierzynski’s two-run homer briefly gave UAB life. But the Shockers buried any comeback hopes with seven runs over the final two innings. Ganter’s second homer stretched the lead to 5-2, Josh Wulfert followed with a two-run single and Jayson Jones delivered the knockout punch in the ninth with a long three-run homer for the final margin.
That finish capped a weekend in which Wichita State’s pitching, the biggest question mark entering the series, became the biggest answer. Against a UAB offense averaging better than nine runs per game at home, the Shockers allowed just seven earned runs in 27 innings, good for a collective 2.33 ERA, while striking out 24 and walking only nine.
The Shockers did it while also navigating a roster that Green said is increasingly depleted. He confirmed that star catcher Max Kaufer and reliever Ryan Morrison are both headed for season-ending surgeries, while WSU is also missing contributions from Zeb Henry, Finn Kaiyala, Drew Bugner and Brok Eddy.
Green said the injuries are forcing Wichita State to rethink how it manages games, often rotating more players through the lineup earlier than usual. WSU rotated in 14 position players in Saturday’s game and 13 the next day.
“We are really banged up and we have a lot of options that we can’t utilize right now,” Green said. “So we’ve kind of realized we’re going to have to coach different. We’ve got to be creative to win. So I think you’re going to see us, in the fifth inning, start rotating guys in. We used more position players the last two days in a game than maybe I’ve done in the last 10 years. But we’re going to need to keep doing that.”
WSU came away from Birmingham with a real accomplishment. The Shockers knocked off the top team in the American on the road and climbed the standings.
But the schedule is not about to let Wichita State enjoy it for long.
Next comes a trip to Lawrence to face Big 12 leader Kansas on Tuesday, followed by another road series at East Carolina, the hardest place to play in the American. So yes, the Shockers earned the right to feel good about what they ground out in Birmingham. They just do not have the luxury of resting in it.
If this stretch is going to define WSU’s season, then Birmingham was only the first answer. The next 10 days will decide whether the Shockers can keep backing it up.
This story was originally published April 13, 2026 at 7:02 AM.
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