Jared King struggled with his bat for the first half of the season, and the disappointment on his face showed.

“Keep playing,” Kansas State coach Brad Hill told King. “You got to remember why you play the game—that’s to have fun. You could see the pinching on his face.”

Now, King is the hottest hitter on his team, batting over .500 with three home runs.

“You have to keep swinging to get out of a slump and I’m out of it now. It feels really good,” King said. “I got a weight lifted off of my shoulders and it’s helping the team win.”

The Wildcats (27-11) took early control of Wichita State (21-17) on King’s three-run home run and KSU pitchers Jake Doller, Hayden Nixion, Gerardo Esquivel and Jake Matthys stymied WSU’s offense, allowing a combined two hits the entire game in KSU’s 4-1 victory.

It marks the third time in five years that KSU swept WSU in the season series.

A concern for WSU coming into the game was how to keep KSU’s batters at bay. The Wildcats lead the nation in batting average and are ranked third in the nation in total hits.

“The whole team is doing well,” King said. “The offense has been unbelievable this season.”

The first inning for WSU was a sign of things to come and it wasn’t pretty. Kris Gardner made the start for WSU, and ended up behind the count to five of the first eight batters he faced. Then, WSU blew a chance to get out of the inning on a double play with a fielding error. 

King took advantage as he stepped to the plate and hit a three-run home run to left field off of Gardner’s fastball to take a 3-0 lead.

“We have a double play ball, I mean as routine as it gets, and we take forever to get rid of it and then we throw it high,” Shockers coach Gene Stephenson said.

Stephenson pulled Gardner in the first inning after giving up three runs and four hits.

Shane Conlon’s one-run single gave KSU a 4-0 lead in the fourth inning.

It was a dreadful performance for a Shocker offense that didn’t get its first hit until the sixth inning on a Micah Green single.

“You have to give credit to their pitching but I don’t think we competed very well offensively,” Stephenson said. “They gave us a lot of hitting lessons tonight, meaning that they stayed on a lot of balls, especially with two strikes, put the ball in play the other way on the ground and on line and they got a lot of base hits that way.”

The Wildcats are now winners of nine of their last 10 games.

All is good for Hall, who took the time to acknowledge some of the Wildcat fans in attendance.

The only thing he would like to see his team improve on is driving runners home; KSU left 13 men on base and was 3-for-14 with runners in scoring position. As anemic as WSU’s bats looked, they were still within striking distance, trailing 4-1 in the eighth inning.

“I’m always worried about that when you can’t continue to build the score,” Hill said. “You keep worrying about that, they’re really just one big inning away from being right back in the ballgame and you don’t like the score being that close on the road.”