Baseball: WVU Gets a School First in Sweep
May 14, 2006 05:01 PM | General
May 14, 2006
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| Kenny Durst |
CINCINNATI – Kenny Durst allowed one unearned run through 7 2/3 innings and the Mountaineer bats pounded out 18 hits to defeat Cincinnati 10-1 Sunday afternoon at UC Baseball Complex. The victory gives West Virginia’s its first-ever three-game road sweep in Big East play since joining the conference in 1996.
With losses today by Villanova and Georgetown, the Mountaineers (33-18, 13-11) assured themselves a spot in this year’s Big East championships to be played in Clearwater, Fla., May 23-27.
“This weekend could not have been better for us,” said West Virginia coach Greg Van Zant, now four wins shy of 350 for his career. “We’ve been in this league for 12 years and we’ve never taken three on the road and I told our guys on the bus after the game about that. It’s just so hard to do that in this league.”
Senior Doug Nelms went 5 for 5 with a pair of runs scored and broke the school single-season record for at-bats with 229. The previous mark of 224 was held by shortstop Nate Reeser in 1999.
“Nelms had a great day,” Van Zant.
Casey Bowling, David Carpenter and Michael Burger had three hits each, and all but one WVU starter had at least one hit today against three Bearcat pitchers.
After scoring a run in the first, West Virginia plated three more in the third on RBI singles by Carpenter and Burger. The two also knocked in a pair of runs in the fifth to help WVU to a 6-0 lead.
"It takes a little pressure off when your offense scored as many runs as we did this weekend," Durst said. "The hitters did great and did everything you could ask of them."
Durst was able to pitch out of trouble in the bottom of the fifth after an error by Nelms loaded the bases with two outs. West Virginia’s left hander then got Cincinnati’s top RBI man Logan Park to fly out to right to end the inning.
Durst got out of another jam in the sixth, too. Errors by Nelms and Kyle Matuszek led to an unearned Cincinnati run, but Durst escaped further damage by getting Jon DeLuca to fly out to center with the bases loaded to end the inning.
The sophomore finally gave way to Levi Maxwell in the eighth. Maxwell got the final out of the inning and then got a 4-6-3 double play to retire the side in the ninth.
Durst allowed eight hits and struck out five to improve to 4-4. The Point Pleasant, W.Va., resident managed to lower his earned run average from 5.19 to 4.54.
"I had command of all my pitches and I was able to get ahead of the hitters and got the first out of every inning except for one I believe," Durst said.
“He attacked the zone; he was very aggressive and he was throwing all three pitches for strikes’ Van Zant said. “He really went after their hitters and made them swing the bat.
“Kenny is really capable,” Van Zant said. “He pitched a couple of really good games at the beginning of the year and he just kind of got into a funk where things just didn’t go his way: he’d get into a jam and walk guys. But our three sophomore lefthanders really stepped up this weekend and did a great job.”
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Current Big East Standings |
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| * 1. Notre Dame | 18-5-1 | |
| * 2. Connecticut | 15-6-1 | |
| * 3. St. John's | 15-8 | |
| * 4. Louisville | 14-10 | |
| * 5. Rutgers | 13-11 | |
| * 6. West Virginia | 13-11 | |
| 7. Cincinnati | 11-13 | |
| 8. South Florida | 10-14 | |
| 9. Georgetown | 9-15 | |
| 10. Villanova | 8-15 | |
| 11. Pitt | 8-16 | |
| 12. Seton Hall | 7-17 | |
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Today's Results Seton Hall 2, Notre Dame 1 Pitt 11, Connecticut 9 St. John's 4, South Florida 3 Louisville 9, Villanova 4 West Virginia 10, Cincinnati 1 Rutgers 13, Georgetown 1 * Clinched playoff spots |
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West Virginia’s three lefthanders Matt Yurish, Ryan Hill and Durst combined to hold Cincinnati to just one earned run in 20 1/3 innings pitched this weekend.
“The amazing thing is we didn’t even use (Eric) Saffell in this series,” Van Zant said. “Things just went our way.”
Cincinnati starter Dan Osterbrook was lifted before the seventh inning after giving up eight earned runs on 15 hits. He drops to 3-2.
West Virginia batters collected 50 hits for the three-game series and scored 32 runs.
“Our guys really played their ‘A’ game at the right time,” Van Zant said.
Jack Nelson led Cincinnati with a pair of hits. The Bearcats drop to 30-22, 11-13.
“Cincinnati has got a good ball club, they’ve already won 30 games, they swept South Florida and they beat a Kentucky team that is near the top of the SEC standings,” Van Zant said. “I think they will make it to the tournament and I think they will do well.”
West Virginia is currently tied with Rutgers for fifth place in the Big East standings with 13-11 records. But the Knights get the tiebreaker having swept the Mountaineers in Piscataway earlier this year. Rutgers has a three-game series remaining at Connecticut while West Virginia has a three-game conference set left at Hawley Field next weekend against South Florida, currently in eighth place and fighting for the last conference playoff spot.
“We’ve now accomplished three of our goals: we wanted to finish with a winning season, we wanted to get 30 wins and now we’ve got into the tournament,” Van Zant said. “We've just got to try and keep on going.”
Yesterday’s starting pitcher Dan Leatherman took a line drive off his right foot in the fourth inning and was wearing an ice pack on his foot today. He is expected to be available for next weekend’s series against South Florida.
“It just looks like a real bad bruise,” Van Zant said. “From what the trainers tell me he should be OK in a couple of days.”
West Virginia wraps up its non-conference regular season schedule on Tuesday with a game at Hawley Field against Akron at 7 pm. That contest will air live on WAJR and on the Internet through CSTV All-Access.
“We want to finish with as many wins and get as high in the league as we can for seeding for the tournament,” Van Zant said.
