Offensive Explosion
May 08, 2005 08:41 PM | General
May 8, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia isn’t playing like a team on the verge of being eliminated from post-season play. The Mountaineers scored 33 runs and clubbed 32 hits, including eight home runs, to take a doubleheader from Seton Hall Sunday at Hawley Field by scores of 17-3 and 16-3 to sweep a three-game series from the Pirates.
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| West Virginia's Kyle Matuszek attempts to break up a double play in the first of two games against Seton Hall Sunday afternoon at Hawley Field. West Virginia won both games by scores of 17-3 and 16-3.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“I’m really proud of our guys for the way they played this weekend coming off a very tough series at Pitt last weekend,” said West Virginia coach Greg Van Zant. “Things haven’t worked out perfectly for us but our guys are still playing hard.”
Yesterday, West Virginia roughed up Seton Hall pitching for 20 hits in a 21-1 beating. The 54 runs scored this weekend were the most produced by a West Virginia team in a three-game series in Big East play since West Virginia joined the conference in 1996. The prior high was 40 runs generated in a three-game set at Georgetown in 1998.
West Virginia got home runs from Justin Jenkins, Lee Fritz, Kyle Matuszek, Doug Nelms and Travis Damico in the first game, and Nelms, Matuszek and Stan Posluszny smacked round trippers in the nightcap for the Mountaineers, now 22-26, 8-11. West Virginia batters pounded out 14 extra base hits for the twin bill.
“Our team is pretty solid offensively,” said Van Zant. “We just haven’t pitched well enough due to some injuries and inexperience.
“We’ve had some real tough luck with injuries with our pitchers,” Van Zant said. “Shawn Miller and Chris Amedro were our top two starters and neither one can pitch. You take any team in college baseball and take away their top two pitchers and it’s going to be tough.”
But the Mountaineer offense was able to make up for any pitching woes against Seton Hall. With the 10 home runs this weekend, West Virginia now shows 55 home runs this season which is fifth-best in school history. Jenkins leads WVU with 12 home runs, followed by McKown and Polsuszny with 10 each. It is only the second time that West Virginia has ever had three players with 10 or more home runs in the same year, the last coming in 2003 when four players (Kurtis Clinton, Tim McCabe, Eric Grimm and Jake Serfass) did it to help WVU to a school-record 76 home runs that season.
Big innings were the key to West Virginia’s weekend. Yesterday the Mountaineers used a 12-run third to cruise to an easy victory. Today, West Virginia had a five-run second and an eight-run fifth to win the first game, and put up five runs each in the second and fourth innings in the nightcap.
Nelms went 6 for 9 for the doubleheader with a pair of home runs, a triple and a double while knocking in seven runs. He had three hits yesterday to finish the series 9 for 15 with 10 RBI. Nelms is now tied with senior Lee Fritz for the team lead in batting average with a .376 average.
Fritz registered five hits for the doubleheader and knocked in four runs, Jenkins had four hits and five RBI, while Tyler Kuhn and Posluszny had three hits each.
“Our hitters one through nine are as good as any team we’ve ever had,” said Van Zant. “It’s just that the better teams that we’ve had here had a couple of pitchers that could go out and dominate.”
Seton Hall (13-29, 5-14) used six different pitchers for the doubleheader including the same one twice (sophomore Mike Young). Freshman Dan Merkinger took the loss for Seton Hall in the first game and drops to 1-4 while Dan MacDonald was the loser in the nightcap, falling to 3-5.
Pitcher Kevin Korzun was the beneficiary of WVU’s offensive explosion in the first game to pick up his third win of the season. He went six innings, allowing two earned runs and six hits. He struck out one and walked five.
Trent Ridgley pitched a scoreless seventh.
In game two, Wes Osbourn went eight strong innings, giving up three earned runs on six hits. The lefthander struck out five and walked four to improve to 6-3. Todd Dunham pitched a scoreless ninth for the Mountaineers.
The sweep moves West Virginia past Georgetown and Villanova into seventh place in the Big East standings with an 8-11 record.
“If we win our last six then we’re 14-11 (in conference play),” said Van Zant. “If we even win five out of our last six we finish 13-12 and that has a chance of making it although it’s going to be a real long shot.”
West Virginia hits the road for a non-conference game at Akron on Tuesday, May 10, and then travels to Villanova for a three-game weekend conference series. The Mountaineers wrap up the 2005 regular season at Notre Dame for three games May 20-21.
“I’m just glad we’re playing hard and haven’t quit,” said Van Zant. “We sweep a Big East team and nobody wants to be in last place in the league. Plus, we finished above .500 at home (16-12) and that’s something we told our guys they can be proud of. We always want to have a winning season at home.”
