Kansas State baseball season ends with blowout loss to Texas in NCAA Tournament
The longer a team plays in a college baseball tournament, the harder it becomes for that team to find quality pitching.
Both Kansas State and Texas played with limited pitching staffs in an NCAA Tournament elimination game on Sunday at Disch-Falk Field in Austin. But only the Longhorns took advantage at that plate.
Texas won a one-sided slugfest 15-8 to stay alive in the Austin Regional and send K-State home for the season.
Third baseman Casey Borba did most of the scoring for the Longhorns. The way he swung the bat in this game may haunt the Wildcats for quite a while. Borba blasted a grand slam in the first inning and also crushed a three-run homer in the third inning. His first dinger barely cleared the wall with a friendly gust of wind pushing it out. But his second was a no-doubter that cleared the bullpen located beyond left field.
Add to that a home run from Max Belyeu and timely hitting from other UT players and the Longhorns held a 10-3 advantage heading into the bottom of the third. That gave them more than enough of a cushion to comfortably win.
Tanner Duke started for K-State, but he was unable to make it out of the first inning after giving up five earned runs on four hits.
James Guyette came on in relief and wasn’t much better. He gave up six runs and nine hits. The Wildcats had to turn to JJ Slack, Adam Arther, Michael Quevedo and Donte Lewis to make it through nine innings.
Texas hammered most of them, finishing with 15 runs on 16 hits.
For a brief moment, it looked like the Wildcats might be able to keep up with the Longhorns in a high-scoring game. Texas scored six runs in the top of the first inning and K-State immediately responded with three runs in the bottom of the frame thanks to a three-run blast from second baseman Seth Dardar.
The Wildcats were fired up. But they were unable to build off that big moment. K-State finished with six hits, but the vast majority of them came too late after the Longhorns built a 14-3 lead after six innings.
Ruger Riojas picked up the win for Texas by throwing 119 pitches over the course of 7 1/3 innings.
With the win, Texas advanced to the final stage of the Austin Regional. The Longhorns can advance to a Super Regional with a pair of wins against UTSA on its home field.
K-State ended the season with 32 wins.
Overall, it was a good year for the Bat Cats.
The Wildcats reached the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons, which is not easily done for baseball teams in Manhattan. Pete Hughes also became the fastest head coach in school history to win 200 games. Keegan O’Connor also set a program record for single-season home runs with 17, while AJ Evasco broke the freshman school record for home runs and RBIs in a season.
His production helped K-State hit a school record 96 home runs on the season.
K-State baseball fans will likely remember this season fondly because of big plays like that, but the Wildcats ended on a low note against Texas.
This story was originally published June 1, 2025 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Kansas State baseball season ends with blowout loss to Texas in NCAA Tournament."