Terps Triumphant
May 09, 2006 11:21 PM | General
May 9, 2006
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia coach Greg Van Zant will spend some time going over this game with his team before moving on to bigger things this weekend. The Mountaineers had a pair of runners thrown out at home plate and another thrown out at third in an 11-9 non-conference loss to Maryland Tuesday night at Hawley Field.
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| Tyler Kuhn tries to tag out Maryland's Matt Maropis at second base during Tuesday night's game at Hawley Field in Morgantown, W.Va. Maryland defeated West Virginia 11-9.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
“That was a pretty ugly game,” said Van Zant. “It had a slow pace and it wasn’t a very cleanly pitched game, it wasn’t a cleanly fielded game, there were base running mistakes … it’s just one of those games that happen once in a while.”
After falling behind 6-3, West Virginia (30-18) battled back to tie the game 8-8 in the seventh on Adam White’s sacrifice fly to left just before David Carpenter was thrown out at home trying to score from second on Tyler Kuhn’s sharp single to center. The Terps were then able to get out of the inning without any further damage when Doug Nelms flied out to left.
“If I had to do it over again, I might not have sent (Carpenter) on Kuhn’s base hit with one out with our two, three, and four (hitters) coming up,” Van Zant said.
Maryland answered with three runs in the eighth off reliever Ryan Hill to take an 11-9 lead.
In the bottom of the eighth against Terrapin closer Brett Cecil, Stan Poslsuzny drew a one out walk and moved to second on Kyle Matuszek’s infield single. Casey Bowling walked to load the bases and West Virginia got a run when Carpenter’s slow roller to second was misplayed by Maryland’s Dan Melvin, who threw the ball into left field trying to get Matuszek at second. Posluszny scored on the play to make the score 11-9, Maryland.
Maryland got out of the inning when Michael Burger’s fly ball to right was hauled in by Matt Maropis, who then fired a strike to catcher Dan Mellies to get Matuszek at the plate tagging from third.
Cecil ran into more trouble in the bottom of the ninth, walking Tyler Kuhn and getting the winning run at the plate when Mike Murphy misplayed Justin Jenkins’ ground ball to third. But Cecil was able to get Posluszny to hit a soft fly out to second to end the game and pick up his ACC-leading 12th save.
“They had a pretty good kid on the mound there at the end,” Van Zant said.
Seth Overbey pitched 4 1/3 innings of relief, giving up five runs, four earned, on eight hits to get the win. He is now 4-2.
Hill took the loss for West Virginia, giving up three earned runs on four hits in 2 1/3 innings. Hill drops to 0-1.
“Usually nine runs will win most games but we just couldn’t hold them down,” Van Zant said.
West Virginia had 16 hits, three each by Kuhn and Posluszny. Casey Bowling, White and Carpenter had two hits apiece. Carpenter slugged his fifth home run of the year over the HealthWorks sign in left center in the second.
Maryland took both games from West Virginia this year, beating the Mountaineers 10-8 in College Park back on April 18.
“You’ve got to give Maryland credit, they’re already eliminated from post-season play coming into this game and they came in and played hard and didn’t lay down on us,” Van Zant said.
Dan Benick had three hits and a pair of runs batted in for the Terps, now 23-30. Benick hit his third home run of the year in the fourth and Chad Durakis hit his second home run of the season in the third.
“We would have loved to have won it, got number 31 and split with that team, but that game does not affect the outcome of our season,” Van Zant said. “We’re going to take tomorrow off and then get up and leave Thursday morning and get a good workout in on Cincinnati’s field and get ready for the biggest series of the year.”
The Mountaineers play a key three-game Big East series at Cincinnati beginning on Friday.
“Our main objective is to get to the Big East tournament,” Van Zant said. “If we win four of our last six league games we are in the tournament. If we win three we’ve got a real good chance of getting in. If we win two of the last six then we’re going to need a lot of help.
“But we control our own destiny.”
