Kansas baseball coach Dan Fitzgerald’s rebuild just reached new heights, as Friday the team captured a Big 12 Conference regular season title.
Fitzgerald, who took over ahead of the 2023 season, just led the team to its first regular season conference championship since 1949. The Jayhawks defeated BYU on Friday, 7-6, to earn the title. And with it, they’ve done a lot to move toward hosting a NCAA regional following the Big 12 tournament.
“It feels pretty good. I’m so proud of these guys,” Fitzgerald said in a KU release. “This is four years in the making. It’s our families, it’s all of our wives. It’s the entire Jayhawk Nation, it’s our administration and it’s hundreds of people who have led to this moment. It’s pretty special.”
Fitzgerald and company aren’t done yet in the regular season, with another game Saturday set to begin at 2 p.m. (CT) against BYU in Provo, Utah. But at 39-15 overall this season, and 22-7 in Big 12 play, they’ve already set a new program record with 22 conference victories. They’ve also won an eighth conference series, which is also a new school record.
This consequential win Friday against BYU saw sophomore Tyson Owens hit a go-ahead home run in the top of the ninth inning. KU had built up a 6-0 lead over the course of the game, before watching BYU mount a comeback. Kansas, though, stepped up for the win.
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He was the 2022 National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas baseball captures Big 12 Conference regular season title