Baseball: WVU Finishes Strong
May 23, 2004 02:01 PM | General
By John Antonik for MSNsportsNET.com
May 23, 2004
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STORRS, Conn. – West Virginia used 10 hits and solid relief pitching from both Chris Amedro and Todd Dunham to defeat Connecticut 6-5 in the final game of the 2004 campaign.
Amedro, a junior from Moundsville, pitched three innings in relief of starter Justin Asbury to collect his second victory (2-4) of the year. Dunham pitched the remaining 1.1 innings to earn his third save of the season.
West Virginia scored single runs in the first and fourth and two runs each in the third and eighth.
In WVU’s two-run third, Kurtis Clinton belted a two-run single to drive in Grant Psomas and Jake Serfass. Serfass reached by way of walk and Psomas doubled him to third.
Leading 4-3 in the eighth, the Mountaineers (23-29, 10-16) tacked on two important insurance runs. Doug Nelms led off the inning with a double to left and reached third when Connecticut third baseman Dennis Donovan couldn’t handle Travis D’Amico’s sacrifice bunt attempt. Nelms scored on a wild pitch by Husky reliever Tim Norton and D’Amico eventually scored on David Carpenter’s sacrifice fly to left.
Those two runs proved critical as Connecticut put together a two-run bottom of the eighth to close West Virginia’s lead to 6-5. WVU was able to keep the tying run from scoring when second baseman Kyle Matuszek was able to gun down Connecticut’s Mike Mocerino at the plate trying to score on Russ D’Argento’s infield single to short.
Dunham managed to set down Connecticut in order in the ninth to give the Mountaineers their 23rd victory of the season.
Psomas, Clinton and Lee Fritz collected two hits each for WVU. Clinton closed out his Mountaineer career with a 15-game hitting streak.
Connecticut starter Brendan McGinn took the loss for the Huskies, allowing four earned runs and eight hits through four innings. His record drops to 3-5. D’Argento, Marc Paluso and Tim Dempsey had two hits each for UConn, which finishes the year 26-29-1.
WVU took two of three from Connecticut to move past the Huskies in the Big East standings to finish eighth with a 10-16 league record. Notre Dame (20-6), St. John’s (17-9), Pitt (17-9) and Boston College (15-9) earned berths to play in the 2004 Big East Championships to be held at Commerce Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, N.J., beginning Thursday, May 27, and continuing through Saturday, May 29.
West Virginia finished the campaign by avoiding just its second 30-loss season in school history, capturing five of its last six decisions against East Tennessee State, Akron and Connecticut.
Tim Goodenow contributed to this report.
