On a Roll
March 15, 2006 05:20 PM | General
March 15, 2006
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| Tyler Kuhn |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Justin Jenkins’ single through a drawn-in infield in the bottom of the ninth inning knocked in Tyler Kuhn and gave West Virginia a 5-4 victory over Norfolk State Wednesday afternoon at Hawley Field.
Norfolk State tied the game in the ninth when Jose Torres hit a wind-blown home run over the left field fence. The Spartans also got a three-run home run to left from shortstop Moriba George off of WVU starter Joe Stupka in the third to take a 3-2 lead.
West Virginia (12-3) manufactured its five runs with one run each in the first, second, fifth, eighth and ninth innings.
“In baseball when you get a win you get a win: I’m always happy when we can do that,” West Virginia coach Greg Van Zant said. “I’m not disappointed that we didn’t beat them 12-0 or anything like that.”
Kuhn went 4 for 5 and scored three runs. The sophomore had a pair of doubles and boosted his batting average to a team-best .414. The Louisville, Ky., resident has a team-leading six doubles and 19 runs scored through 15 games.
Casey Bowling doubled in a run in the eighth and finished the game 3 for 4. Jenkins also had a pair of hits for the Mountaineers.
Stupka gave up three runs on six hits in seven innings of work, striking out eight and walking two. Dan Leatherman relieved Stupka in the eighth and pitched the final two innings to pick up his fourth win of the year. Leatherman allowed just the home run to Torres and struck out two.
“We got pretty good pitching,” said Van Zant. “Stupka had the one inning when he hung the 1-2 pitch, walked a guy and then he threw a belt-high fastball that their guy gets up in the wind.
“But we were able to put Leatherman into the game and it was one of those days where we were able to win even though we couldn’t score a lot of runs because we had solid pitching and played decent defense,” Van Zant said.
The Mountaineers were flawless in the field successfully handling all 36 chances. West Virginia came into the game with an outstanding .976 fielding percentage.
Norfolk State reliever Mark Young pitched the final three innings and took the loss to drop to 2-2.
“We saw their two best guys,” said Van Zant. “They started off with Williams who pitched against us last year and then they brought in their top guy who had a real good ERA.”
Torres had a pair of hits for the Spartans, now 7-12. The two teams were scheduled to play yesterday but the game was called due to inclement weather.
“Norfolk State is much improved, their coach has done a heck of a job with them,” said Van Zant.
The victory was Van Zant’s 325th at West Virginia University. The 12th-year coach is now 10 wins shy of tying Steve Harrick for second on the school career win list with 335. The late Dale Ramsburg has the most victories in school history with 540.
The Mountaineers, winners of six straight, entertain Eastern Michigan of the Mid-American Conference for a three-game, Friday-Saturday-Sunday series this weekend. Friday’s game is scheduled to begin at 3 pm and the two weekend games will get underway at 1.
