Baseball: WVU Drops Fifth Straight
April 13, 2006 11:20 PM | General
April 13, 2006
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| Casey Bowling |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Rich Sirios pitched eight strong innings and Bryan Maler went 3 for 5 with an RBI to lead Connecticut to a 6-3 win over West Virginia Thursday night at Hawley Field.
Sirois gave up two runs on eight hits with eight strike outs to run his record to 3-1.
“Their guy pitched a great game,” said West Virginia coach Greg Van Zant. “He had a heck of a changeup. Their starter went eight and our starter went one and two-thirds and that’s really the story.”
Sirois gave way to Ted Garry in the ninth and the Husky reliever made things interesting. Tyler Kuhn led off the inning with a high chopper to first that he was able to beat out. Adam White followed with a bunt single to the pitcher and Justin Jenkins added a single to right to load the bases.
Stan Posluszny delivered the fourth hit of the inning to right to knock in Kuhn and make it a 6-3 game. Garry then got Kyle Matuszek and Casey Bowling on strikes before David Carpenter’s fly ball to right was caught by Josh Farkas just in front of the warning track.
West Virginia (25-9, 5-5) got 12 hits but wasn’t able to deliver the big hit when it needed it. Bowling and Jenkins had three hits each for the Mountaineers, which have now lost five in a row including four straight in conference play. It was also West Virginia’s first loss at home this year.
“I was happy with that performance,” Van Zant said. “We really played hard and tried to win the game. We’ve been in kind of a little funk but tonight we played hard. They just out-played us.”
Connecticut (22-10, 9-3) also had 12 hits and was able to knock West Virginia starter Marty Fagler out in the second inning. The lefthander gave up three runs on five hits in an inning and two-thirds to take the loss. He drops to 3-3. After an hour lightning delay, Dan Leatherman entered the game in relief and was able to hold Connecticut scoreless for four innings before giving up three runs in the seventh.
“It’s hard to shut a team like that down and I thought he did a nice job,” Van Zant said.
Leatherman fanned eight and walked six in 7 1/3 innings of relief.
The two teams will resume play tomorrow. Connecticut throws righthander Tim Norton, who owns a 4-1 record with a 1.26 earned run average.
“He was Cape Cod MVP last year and he’s top five in the country in ERA. He might be the best pitcher in the league so we’ll have a big challenge tomorrow,” Van Zant said.
The Mountaineers will counter with lefthander Kenny Durst. The sophomore is 3-2 with a 3.68 earned run average.
Friday night’s game will start at 7:05 pm and will air live on WAJR and on the Internet through CSTV All Access.
