KU Baseball Opens Season With 11-1 Victory
Feb. 2, 2006
HILO, Hawaii –
The University of Kansas baseball team opened its 2006 season with an 11-1 victory over the University of Hawaii-Hilo Wednesday night in Hilo, Hawaii. <?xml:namespace prefix=”o” ns=”urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office”?>
Senior Kodiak Quick held the Vulcans to one run on six hits while striking out six batters in seven innings of work. Seniors Matt Baty, Gus Milner and Jared Schweitzer each recorded three hits to pace KU’s 14-hit attack. Milner and Schweitzer also added solo home runs and Baty drove in three runs.
Milner led off the second inning with a home run over the left-centerfield wall. Sophomore Ryne Price was then hit by a pitch and stole second base. Brock Simpson beat out an infield hit allowing a hustling Price to score from second. Baty drove in Simpson with a single, giving KU a 3-0 lead.
Schweitzer hit his 13th career homerun with one out in the fifth inning. Milner followed with a single up the middle and moved to second on an error by the centerfielder. Ryne Price drove Milner home with a single to right.
The Vulcans used a walk, double and infield single to score its only run of the game in the fifth inning.
Kansas scored four runs and sent ten batters to the plate in the eighth inning and two runs in the ninth highlighted by freshman Preston Land’s first career hit and RBI.
KU and Hawaii-Hilo will play the second game of its five-game set Thursday at 10 p.m. central time.
Game Notes: Freshman catcher Buck Afenir made his first career start and recorded a hit in his first at bat for the Jayhawks … Afenir threw out his first base runner on his first attempt in the bottom of the first inning … Gus Milner hit his 10th career home run on the second pitch he saw of the season … Sophomore Ryne Price, who set a KU record for most times hit by a pitch as a freshman (12), was hit by a pitch in his first at bat of the season … Juniors Kyle Murphy and Dylan Parzyk, and freshmen Justin Ellrich, Carter Holt, Preston Land, Paul Smyth and Andrew Spitzfaden played in their first game at KU.
