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The West Virginia baseball team dominated in-state rival Marshall in Morgantown by the score of 17-8. The Mountaineers scored 17 straight runs, propelling themselves to victory on Wednesday.
“You know, it’s good to win these games,” Mazey said. “They’re trying as hard as they can to beat us all the time and they’ve done it in the past, and our guys know they’re capable of beating us. It’s not who the best team is, it’s the team that plays the best,” West Virginia head coach Randy Mazey said.
In the first inning, WVU starting pitcher Tyler Strechay allowed a hit, but the Marshall threat was neutralized when the Mountaineers turned an impressive four-six-three double play to end the inning.
After WVU failed to put a runner on base in the bottom of the first, Marshall jumped out to an early lead when catcher Ryan Leitch homered to left field.
In the second inning, WVU’s Grant Hussey started things off with a base hit up the middle for a single. After the single, Braden Barry doubled to put runners on second and third with one out. Marshall got out of the inning when Dayne Leonard lined out to shortstop and the Herd turned a double play after Barry failed to get back to second base in time.
Marshall extended its early lead in the third inning when left fielder Cole Williams drove in a run with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly to make it 2-0. A passed ball with a man on third base made it a 3-0 game, and Ryan Leitch singled in another run to make it 4-0.
WVU got on the board in the bottom of the third when JJ Wetherholt doubled in Austin Davis to make it a 4-1 game.
The Mountaineers came alive and took the lead in the bottom of the fourth inning by putting together seven runs off eight hits. With two outs and two runners on, Mikey Kluska doubled down the left field line to score both runners and cut the deficit to 4-3.
After the double, WVU tied the game with an RBI triple from Tevin Tucker. The Mountaineers took the lead on the next at-bat when Austin Davis singled in Tucker. Still with two outs, JJ Wetherholt tripled to bring home Davis and extend the lead to 6-4. The two out rally continued when McGwire Holbrook brought home two more runs on a single to left field to make it 8-4.
Neither team scored in the fifth or sixth inning, but WVU added to its lead in the bottom of the seventh frame.
Marshall’s pitching struggled mightily in the bottom of the seventh, as WVU scored three runs off wild pitches and put up six runs in the inning to make it a 14-4 game.
WVU added three more runs in the eighth to extend the lead to 17-4, and that large advantage was not lost.
Marshall put up four runs in the top of the ninth inning, but it was not nearly enough to overcome the large deficit. WVU won by the score of 17-8.
West Virginia improves to 17-10 on the season and will welcome the Baylor Bears into town on Friday for a three-game series. First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Friday, while Saturday’s game will begin at 4 p.m., and Sunday’s game will start at 1 p.m.
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