Sweeping the Storm
May 01, 2004 07:34 PM | General
By Brady Smith for MSNsportsNET.com
May 1, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - After winning seven of nine games on the road and four straight, the WVU baseball team showed no signs of cooling off as they swept BIG EAST foe St. John's in a doubleheader on Saturday afternoon at Hawley Field.
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| Shortstop Grant Psomas is congratulated by teammates after slugging his sixth home run of the season. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
Junior southpaw Zac Cline tossed a complete game two-hit masterpiece to lead West Virginia past the Red Storm, 5-1, in game one.
Cline (6-2) was just four outs away from pitching a no-hitter until P.J. Antoniato singled to right field in the sixth inning to score Anthony DeRosa, who reached on a fielder's choice and then stole second.
"It was in the back of my mind but I was more worried about helping the team win the game," said Cline, who picked up his 22nd career victory, tying him for seventh place with Shane Rhodes on the WVU all-time win list. "When I finally allowed the hit I just said, ‘Oh well' and concentrated on winning the game."
Cline pitched all seven innings for his league-leading seventh complete game of the season and allowed one unearned run (St. John's first batter of the sixth inning reached on an error) on two hits while striking out four and walking two.
West Virginia got on the board in the first after Kurtis Clinton singled in Grant Psomas, who singled and advanced to second on a Stan Posluszny base hit. It was Clinton's 200th career hit as a Mountaineer, making him just one of seven players in WVU history to reach that mark.
Clinton went 3 for 3 with two RBI and passed Eric Grimm for fifth-place on the all-time hit list with 203 career hits.
Freshman Justin Richards gave West Virginia a two-run lead in the second with a solo home run to left center, his second of the season.
West Virginia tagged on two more runs in the fourth inning after Lee Fritz ripped a bases-loaded double that scored Travis D'Amico and Jake Serfass.
That was all Cline needed.
"Zac went out there today and just shut a very good St. John's team down," said coach Greg Van Zant. "We also got some timely hits and just played real well overall."
Psomas, Fritz and Richards had two hits apiece for West Virginia.
In the nightcap, Grant Psomas went 4 for 4 with two RBI and three runs scored and WVU's bullpen held off St. John's in the final four innings for a 6-5 victory.
West Virginia sophomore Kyle Matuszek put his team up early with a bases-loaded two-run double in the first inning.
St. John's countered with three runs off WVU starter Ryan Lipscomb in the third inning after a two-run homer by Antoniato and an RBI single by Joe Burke.
West Virginia tied the game 3-3 on a solo home run by Psomas to lead off the bottom of the third, but the Red Storm regained the lead after Antoniato drove in another run on a sacrifice fly in the fourth inning.
The Mountaineers big inning came in the sixth as Justin Richards led off with a single and was eventually doubled in by Psomas with two outs to tie the game at 4-4. Still with two outs, Lee Fritz singled to left field to score Psomas from second and then advanced to second on the throw home. Stan Posluszny followed with an RBI single to give WVU a 6-4 advantage.
WVU's Chris Amedro (1-4) picked up his first victory of the season after allowing one unearned run on one hit with two strikeouts and four walks in 3.2 innings of solid relief work.
After the Red Storm pulled within one run of WVU, freshman Wes Osbourn entered the game in relief of Amedro with the bases loaded and got St. John's Mike Rozema to ground out to second base to end the inning.
Osbourn recorded two outs in the ninth inning before giving way to Todd Dunham, who struck out pinch hitter Derek Sullivan to end the game. Dunham picked up his second save of the season.
For the Mountaineers (18-22, 8-11), the sweep extended their winning streak to six straight games and marked their ninth win in their last 11 games.
"I just can't say enough about this team and their character," said Van Zant. "We were 9-20 overall and 1-9 in the conference at one point, and these kids never quit for one second. These two wins today were just great."
The Red Storm fell to 27-16 overall and 12-7 in the conference but still have a strong hold on fourth place in the BIG EAST.
The two teams wrap up their series with a single game on Sunday at 1 p.m., at Hawley Field.
"St. John's will definitely bounce back from this," said Van Zant. "They are a good club and very well coached, so it should be a real fight tomorrow for us."
