For college baseball teams, the majority of their success rides on how their ace pitches on Friday night.
Aidan Major showed how valuable he can be for West Virginia baseball on Friday, as he threw seven shutout innings, while Sam White homered twice and the Mountaineers took game one from Western Kentucky, 4-0.
Major finished Friday throwing 7.0 innings, striking out five and only allowing two hits, while walking one.
With Major’s performance, West Virginia’s offense didn’t need to provide much help. The Mountaineers were held scoreless through the first three innings, before Sam White hit his second home run of the year on a solo shot, putting WVU on the board, 1-0.
That would not be White’s only blast of the night, as in the fifth inning, White returned to the plate, this time with a runner on base. Logan Sauve singled before White hit his second home run of the night, to put the Mountaineers in front 3-0.
Sauve would then manufacturer his own run in the seventh, as he doubled, and then advanced to third on a wild pitch, and then score on an error as the Mountaineers went in front, 4-0.
That’s all Major needed, as he threw 109 pitches while not allowing an extra base hit. David Hagaman came in to relieve Major, and he pitched a scoreless eighth and ninth innings, while allowing only one base hit. In total, WVU held Western Kentucky to three hits in total.
WVU’s offense totaled eight hits, with Sauve and White totaling four of those hits. White finished with three RBIs, and the duo of Sauve and White scored all four of WVU’s runs.
WVU struck out 11 times as a team, and had five extra base hits as a team.
Tomorrow will be a traditional doubleheader between West Virginia and Western Kentucky, with the first game starting at 2:00 p.m.
