Weather delays Super Regional, Kansas baseball trails Oklahoma 8-1

Weather pushed Kansas baseball’s season to the edge at Hoglund Ballpark, where Oklahoma led 8-1 when thunderstorms and lightning stopped Game 2 of the Lawrence Super Regional late Sunday night. The suspended game now carries the Jayhawks into a Monday noon restart on ESPN2, with their season hanging on a seven-run rally just to keep the series alive.

Kansas Athletics said the game was halted in the bottom of the third inning and would resume at 12 p.m. CT on Monday. Kyle Branch was due to bat for Oklahoma when play picked back up, with Boede Rahe on the mound for Kansas. Tickets from Sunday’s suspended game were valid for the first game Monday, and if Kansas forced a winner-take-all Game 3, it was scheduled to start at approximately 4 p.m. CT after the stadium was cleared.

The delay stretched from 8:40 p.m. until after 10:23 p.m. before officials finally announced the suspension, turning a high-stakes postseason game into a long night of waiting for fans in Lawrence and across Douglas County. Kansas had already lost the opener 8-1 on Saturday, so Sunday’s stoppage only sharpened the pressure on Dan Fitzgerald’s team, which had to respond immediately or watch its first Super Regional run end at home.

Oklahoma had built its lead with a six-run second inning after Kansas briefly tied the game. The Jayhawks answered in the second with a two-out RBI single from Jordan Bach, but the Sooners broke it open and added a Dayton Tockey solo home run in the third before the weather moved in. When the game was suspended, the Sooners were still in command and Kansas needed a comeback to keep the series going.

The setting made the interruption even more significant. This was Kansas’ first-ever Super Regional appearance at Hoglund Ballpark, where the usual 2,500-seat home was expanded to roughly 4,000 for regionals. The Jayhawks got there by beating Arkansas 13-10 in the Lawrence Regional final on May 31, and Fitzgerald said after the Game 1 loss that he was proud of how his team competed and expected them to be ready for Sunday. Oklahoma, meanwhile, arrived in Lawrence after Tockey’s walk-off home run in the 10th inning beat Georgia Tech 8-7 in the Atlanta Regional final.

What had already become the biggest baseball weekend in Hoglund Ballpark history now turned into a Monday test of Kansas’ comeback hopes, with the home crowd waiting to see whether the Jayhawks could extend their season one more game.