BOXSCORE: at Kansas

LAWRENCE, Kan. - Kansas scored early and often after the Northern Colorado baseball team scored two in the first inning en route to a 15-6 victory to earn the series sweep. The Bears are now 8-17 on the season, while the Jayhawks improve to 17-10.

Northern Colorado tallied 10 hits in the game, with two each from Adam Hilker, Jarod Berggren and Seth Budde, but scored just six times and they committed two errors. Kansas tallied 15 runs on 13 hits and had three errors.

"We struggled in all aspects of the game today," said Head Coach Kevin Smallcomb. "I thought when we scored two in the first it would help our momentum, but Kansas put up five and we never recovered. Like I said yesterday, we have to finish at bats and finish innings to compete in games and that didn't happen here today."

Cameron Tallman, who started for the Bears, moves to 1-3 on the season. He pitched just 0.1 innings allowing five runs on five hits with two walks and one strikeout. Jeff Sciba threw the next 2.1 frames, also surrendering five runs, doing so with four hits, three walks and one strikeout. Junior Eric Skufca pitched 3.1 innings allowing two earned runs on two hits with one walk and Ty Jacobs and Kevin Sandberg each pitched one inning allowing one hit each.

Northern Colorado wasted no time getting on the scoreboard. Hilker reached on an error to lead off the game and Berggren hit his third homerun of the year for the early 2-0 lead. Like they did yesterday, the Jayhawks had an immediate answer as they put five on the board and Tallman out of the game.

Kansas tacked on another two runs in the bottom of the second on a pair of sacrifice flies and three in the third for the 10-2 advantage. In the fifth and sixth innings, the Jayhawks plated two each for the 14-2 lead.

In the top of the seventh, Hilker singled with one out, advanced to second on a balk and moved to third on a flyout by Berggren. He then scored on a wild pitch to make the score 14-3.

Then in the eighth frame, the Bears got two runs to close the game to nine, 14-5. With one out, Budde was hit by a pitch. Tony Crudo singled down the left field line and freshman Casey Coy, in his first game back since injuring his hand in the opening series against Montana State-Billings, reached on a fielding error by the KU third baseman. Budde scored on a sacrifice fly by Adrian Schenk and Hilker doubled to center to score Crudo.

Kansas responded with one run in the eighth and the Bears answered with one in the ninth when Budde singled up the middle to score Patrick Roche who walked in a pinch-hitting situation for Kevin Sandberg for the final score of 15-6.

Northern Colorado will host the alumni game on Saturday, April 4 at noon at Jackson Field. The Bears then travel to take on the Air Force Academy on Tuesday, April 7. First pitch is scheduled for 2:30 p.m.