In the early baseball season it is not always if you win and lose, but how you win and lose. After a blazing hot start, Wichita State was unable to sustain that momentum, and they suffered their second consecutive loss tonight to the Nebraska Cornhuskers 7-3.

If adversity is the recipe for success, then consistency, resilience and compartmentalization are the ingredients. Tonight, the Wichita State men’s baseball team did their best impersonation of an amateur 400 meter runner who gets to quickest start possible — and perhaps even take the lead only to break down on the final stretch.  

The Shockers got out to an early 2-0 lead on a two-out-two-run single by Chase Simpson at the bottom of the first. Then Tyler Baker left his mark with an electrifying homerun down centerfield – the team’s 13th homerun of the season and his second of the season and against Nebraska all-time – to give the Shockers a 3-1 lead over the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  

Everything appeared to be going well for the Shockers. But like any competitive event, it’s not how you start — it’s how you finish.

In the final stretch, consistency was a problem for the Shockers as they searched for an answer for Nebraska’s hitting – giving up a hit in every inning, 17 total.

The team appeared to be depleted after their start.

“We didn’t play terrible,” he said. “We didn’t do enough offensively. We’re about halfway through the season and maybe this is our team — maybe this who we are. If we stay this way it’s definitely not good enough.”

In the midst of defeat, Tyler Baker remains optimistic.

“We just have to come out like we did, you know, and keep playing hard,” he said. “We just have to come out the rest of the season and play our hearts out.”