FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — With the South Dakota States and Western Illinoises out of the way and the conference grind fast approaching, Kansas coach Ritch Price is finding out if his current weekend starters are the right trio to carry the team for the rest of the season.

Facing No. 10 Arkansas (13-5) last weekend, Kansas (11-8) saw mixed results out of its rotation, comprised of left-handers junior Zach Ashwood and sophomores Nick Czyz and Andy Marks.

“We run two sophomores out there on Saturday and Sunday and when you’re playing nationally ranked opponents, you’re asking a lot of those guys,” Price said.

Despite their youth, the sophomores stepped up to put Kansas in position to take two of three from Arkansas.

The Jayhawks were looking to salvage the series with a victory on Sunday after losing the first two games. Marks gave them every opportunity. After five innings, the Razorbacks had yet to score. Unfortunately, the same was true for the Jayhawks.

When Marks came out in the sixth, he finally gave out, being charged with four runs. Those four runs and the loss he was handed overshadowed an otherwise solid outing. He recorded six strikeouts in the first five innings and a seventh in the fateful sixth inning.

“I knew if I could keep putting up zeroes that we’d score eventually,” Marks said, undeterred by a lack of run support. “It’s always nice to score first, we’ve been working from behind a lot, but it just didn’t work out today.”

With any kind of run support behind Czyz on Saturday, Kansas would have been in position to steal the series on Sunday.

Czyz did everything in his power to make that happen. He threw seven stellar innings, allowing just one run and striking out seven Razorbacks. He allowed a leadoff single and walked the second batter in the eighth, and was taken out of the game. He was charged with two more runs when they scored later in the inning.

Still with no offensive support, the damage had been done, wasting a gutsy performance from Czyz.

“I just stayed confident,” Czyz said. “The entire time I just kept telling myself that was the last run that was going to score. You’ve got to stay positive out there when the stuff’s hitting the fan.”

Czyz’s performance gave Price even more faith that the sophomore can be one of his go-to guys in big games.

“Those are the situations he’s going to be in,” Price said. “He’s going to be pitching against the first or second guys on people’s staffs. It was a tremendous performance by him.”

On Friday, the eldest of the weekend starters struggled severely. Ashwood gave Kansas four decent innings, allowing two runs, but he didn’t survive the fifth.

The transfer from Texas Christian University was shelled for five more runs, negating a five-run Kansas inning in the top of the fifth.

Once Ashwood was replaced by junior right-hander Andres Esquibel, Arkansas’ bats cooled off. Esquibel pitched 2 1/3 innings and allowed an unearned run.

Esquibel has been dependable out of the bullpen all season and may now be making a push for a starting spot.

In 19 1/3 innings pitched this season, he leads Kansas with a 1.40 ERA to go with his 2-0 record.

“The concern is our bullpen is our strength and if you take him out of the bullpen than we really short our bullpen on a weekend series,” Price said on Friday. “At the same time, we can’t continue to keep giving five, six and seven runs up against nationally ranked opponents.”

Kansan sportswriter Shawn Shroyer can be contacted at sshroyer@kansan.com.

— Edited by Katie Sullivan