MANHATTAN, Kan. – With just eight days until the start of the 2019 football season, K-State Athletics announced Friday special ticket packages and pricing that will be available Monday, August 26, as part of the annual “Back to Campus Day” special offer.

This is the third-straight year fans can purchase tickets with no fees on the first day of the fall semester. These discounted packages will also be available for purchase on Saturday during the “Meet the Cats” autograph session at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

In addition to no fees, fans can purchase several different “one-day-only” ticket deals, including a Pick 6 football package, Wildcat 4 Packs for four of K-State’s Big 12 Conference match-ups and pre-sale tickets for the men’s basketball games against Marquette and the Kansas City Wildcat Classic against Saint Louis.

The Pick 6 package includes six vouchers that can be redeemed for six tickets in any combination to six of the seven football home games, excluding Oklahoma. Attend six different games, or bring five friends to one game, with the Pick 6 package for just $150.

A $75 Homecoming Pack includes a View Level ticket to the Oklahoma game on Saturday, October 26, as well as a ticket to the men’s basketball game the night before and a $10 concessions voucher. The men’s basketball exhibition against Emporia State on Friday, October 25, will feature a pregame Big 12 Championship banner-raising ceremony.

Wildcat 4 Packs will be available at the following prices for these games:

• October 5 vs Baylor: Bench $175, View Level $99
• October 19 vs TCU: Bench $175, View Level $99
• November 16 vs West Virginia: Bench $149, View Level $99
• November 30 vs Iowa State: Bench $99, View Level $79

Fans can also purchase tickets for a pair of men’s basketball games before they go on sale to the general public later this fall. Upper-level tickets to the Kansas City Wildcat Classic against Saint Louis in the Sprint Center will be available for just $10. Fans can also secure a Wildcat 4 Pack to the highly-anticipated non-conference game against Marquette in Bramlage Coliseum for just $60.

Additionally, the ReplyBuy platform is back for the 2019-20 year. ReplyBuy allows fans to receive exclusive ticket offers and complete their purchase by simply responding with a quick text message – eliminating the traditional friction in the e-commerce purchase flow. Fans who register for the service will receive a $10 credit toward their first purchase using ReplyBuy, and fans can register at www.replybuy.com/kstate or by texting KSTATE to 20123.

All Back to Campus packages will be available Saturday, August 24, at the “Meet the Cats” autograph session and Monday, August 26, online at www.k-statesports.com. Fans can also stop by the West Stadium Center box office from 12 p.m., to 4 p.m., on Monday to purchase tickets from the main stadium ticket booth and purchase new purple gameday gear at the K-State Super Store location at the stadium. On Monday, the K-State Super Store will sell select Nike styles at 30% off the original price.

Kansas State opens the 2019 season with the 11^th-annual K-State Family Reunion next Saturday, August 31, when the Wildcats take on Nicholls at 6 p.m., inside Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

K-State football fans will be able to interact with and get autographs from their favorite Wildcats and the new coaching staff on Saturday. The program will hold a “Meet the Cats” autograph session from 2-3 p.m. on the concourse of Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

The West Stadium Center box office and the K-State Super Store will be open for the event.

K-Stats hosts Nicholls on Saturday, Aug. 31 at 6 p.m.

The Outdoor Adventure Park at 5202 Normandy Drive,  Fort Riley will be the site of a 3-D archery tournament on Saturday. It will feature multiple targets including Bigfoot and an opportunity to shoot from a stationary M-1 tank.

Check-in begins at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday. There will be a shooters meeting at 8:30 a.m. and the tournament begins at 9 a.m.

This tournament is open to the public, and will have seven competition categories.

It took 13 minutes for the Kansas City Royals and Boston Red Sox to finish their suspended game on Thursday at Fenway Park. The Red Sox won 5-4 in the 10th inning.

Brock Holt singled to drive in Chris Owings for the game winning run. The contest had been suspended 15 days ago due to inclement weather. The Royals returned to Boston to finish the contest, and now will prepare to play in Cleveland against the Indians beginning on Friday.

BALTIMORE (AP) — In his trying first season as the Orioles’ manager, Brandon Hyde was not the least bit concerned about his team tying a dubious record on a night it cruised to an easy win.

Baltimore matched a major league mark by allowing its 258th homer this season, but the Orioles hit four of their own in an 8-1 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday night.

“We’ve given up a ton of homers,” Hyde said. “What’s the record … 258? So, if it’s 259 or 330, I don’t care. I just want us to get better on the mound and obviously finish this year and go into next year trying to do a better job of keeping the ball in the ballpark and staying off the barrel, but home runs are up. … We’re all tired of seeing them and hopefully we can get better going forward.”

Anthony Santander and Renato Núñez hit back-to-back home runs in the fifth inning for Baltimore, which won its first series since July 25-27 at the Los Angeles Angels.

Jonathan Villar opened the scoring with a two-run shot, while Hanser Alberto put the game away with a three-run blast in the sixth.

Whit Merrifield homered leading off the third for Kansas City. The 2016 Cincinnati Reds owned the previous record for home runs allowed in a season, but the Orioles have 35 games to surpass them.

Long balls have hampered Baltimore throughout the year. The Yankees hit 61 homers off Orioles pitching this season, a record for one team against another.

Aaron Brooks (3-7) picked up his first win in eight starts with the Orioles since being claimed on waivers from Oakland on July 6. He allowed one run and seven hits with four strikeouts over five innings. It was also his first win since April 11.

The last team Brooks beat? The Orioles.

“For me coming over to a new organization, I wanted to show positive movement forward and competitiveness,” Brooks said. “I feel like I’m finally moving towards that part of my game again. It feels good.”

Villar put the Orioles ahead 2-0 in the second with his homer off Mike Montgomery (3-6), whose streak of 14 consecutive scoreless innings was snapped. Stevie Wilkerson later hit an RBI double. He finished with a career-high three hits.

“Credit them,” Montgomery said. “They had a good game plan, they did a good job of making me work, chasing pitches that I wanted them to chase. I wasn’t executing pitches as well as I have the last few weeks, but that happens. They did a good job, just trying to battle.”

Santander and Núñez, who hit his 28th homer, made it 5-1 in the fifth, and Alberto increased the margin in the sixth.

“It feels good when you’re on the winning side,” Alberto said.

The Royals fell to 1-11 in rubber games this year.

MANHATTAN, Kan. – For a third-consecutive season, Kansas State senior defensive end Reggie Walker was named to the watch list for the Ted Hendricks Award, which honors the top defensive end in college football, the Ted Hendricks Foundation announced Wednesday.

Walker, who is joined on the 2019 watch list by 36 other players in the country and two others from the Big 12, is the second player in school history to earn consideration for the award three times. Ian Campbell was a semifinalist in 2006, preseason candidate in 2007 and midseason candidate in 2008. Prior to Walker, Jordan Willis was a midseason candidate for the award in 2016.

A product of Ponchatoula, Louisiana, Walker has 16.0 career sacks to sit two away from entering the school’s top-10 list, while his 30.0 career tackles for loss are nine shy of entering the record book. He is also closing in on the school record for forced fumbles as the eight in his career are tied for third in school history and one shy of the record.

MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State junior quarterback Skylar Thompson was one of 49 players in the country to be named a candidate for the 2019 Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Educational Foundation announced Monday.

Thompson joins a list of the top senior or fourth-year junior quarterbacks who are up for the award. He is the fifth candidate in school history, joining former finalists Chad May (1994) and Michael Bishop (1998), the 2012 Johnny Unitas Gold Arm Award winner and current K-State quarterback coach Collin Klein, in addition to 2014 candidate Jake Waters.

A native of Independence, Missouri, Thompson enters his junior season ranked fifth in school history in career completion percentage (minimum 200 attempts) at 59.45 percent and ninth in career passing efficiency (130.56). He is also 20th in school history in career passing yards at 2,080 as he was just the second player in school history to reach 2,000 career passing yards by the conclusion of his sophomore season.

Last year, Thompson played in 11 games with 10 starts, throwing for 1,391 yards and nine touchdowns on 122-of-208 aim with just four interceptions. He also added 373 rushing yards and five touchdowns on 105 carries to finish the year ranked seventh in the Big 12 in both total offense (160.4 yards per game) and passing efficiency (125.3).

Thompson and the rest of the Wildcats will have a chance to interact with fans and sign autographs this Saturday as the program will hold a“Meet the Cats” autograph session from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., on the concourse of Bill Snyder Family Stadium. The West Stadium Center box office and the K-State Super Store will be open for the event.

The Chris Klieman era of K-State football and the 2019 season kicks off next Saturday, August 31, when the Wildcats take on Nicholls at 6 p.m., inside Bill Snyder Family Stadium. Less than 1,000 tickets remain for the 11^th-annual K-State Family Reunion. Tickets to that game, as well as the other six home games, are available by visiting www.kstatesports.com/tickets, calling 1-800-221-CATS or visiting the main ticket office inside Bramlage Coliseum.

– k-statesports.com –

RYAN LACKEY
Director of Football Communications | K-State Athletics

BALTIMORE (AP) — To most of the 11,659 fans in attendance and the rest of the baseball world, it was little more than a meaningless game between two teams long out of contention.

For Nick Dini, his family and friends, it was an unforgettable experience.

Dini hit his first major league homer in the seventh inning, and the Kansas City Royals stretched Baltimore’s latest losing streak to eight games, defeating the Orioles 5-4 Monday night.

The 26-year-old Dini played high school ball in New Jersey, and when he learned he was going to be playing at Camden Yards, he had his family spread the word. Around 40 people, including his parents, grandparents and sister, showed up to watch the rookie catcher.

They did not go away disappointed. One pitch after Nicky Lopez went deep off Gabriel Ynoa, Dini sent a drive over the center-field wall to make it 5-2. Never mind that it ended an 0-for-10 skid; more importantly, it was his first long ball in 15 plate appearances as a major leaguer.

“It was a good moment. You dream about it, you think about it all the time coming up through the minor leagues then it happens and you’re just floating around the bases,” Dini said. “To be able to do it so close to home and have so many people here made it really special.”

Royals manager Ned Yost, who turned 65 Monday, loved watching the 2015 14th-round draft pick hit it out.

“It is nice to see because they’ve worked so hard to get here and it’s been a lifelong dream to play in the big leagues,” Yost said. “It’s always a pleasure and a privilege to see a kid hit his first big league home run.

Kansas City (45-80) won for only the sixth time in its last 22 games, and Baltimore (39-86) absorbed its 13th loss in 14 games. The only team with fewer wins than these two struggling clubs is Detroit.

Orioles starter John Means (8-9) kept Kansas City hitless until Lopez led off the sixth inning with a single to spark a three-run uprising that wiped out a 1-0 deficit.

Jorge Lopez (2-7) allowed one run and two hits over five innings and Ian Kennedy, the last of five Kansas City relievers, gave up a home run to Rio Ruiz in the ninth before recording his 22nd save.

Jonathan Villar also homered for the Orioles, who have endured skids of five games (twice), six games and 10 games this season.