Key Victory
May 03, 2009 08:21 PM | General
May 3, 2009
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – If West Virginia winds up making a run in postseason play later this month the Mountaineers may point back to their 9-3 victory over Rutgers on Sunday as the catalyst.
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| Senior Billy Gross won his sixth game of the year Sunday against Rutgers to help West Virginia claim the series.
WVU Photographic Services photo |
West Virginia (31-14, 13-8) had seen its great start derailed during a two-week stretch when the Mountaineers lost six of seven games, including five of six in conference play to Notre Dame and South Florida.
Not only had West Virginia lost its first-place standing in the conference, but it was also letting other teams beneath it get back into contention for a better seeding in the league tournament. A 13-1 series opening victory over last-place Rutgers on Friday was neutralized Saturday when the Scarlet Knights claimed a 12-7 win.
That put the Mountaineers back on the spot this afternoon with weather conditions that were less than ideal. West Virginia not only needed to play the game against the Scarlet Knights, but it also needed to win it. Games between Pittsburgh-Georgetown and Louisville-Villanova on Sunday were rained out and will not be made up.
That is important because West Virginia is a game behind the Cardinals in the league standings and Pitt is chasing the Mountaineers in sixth place with a three-game series coming up with WVU in Pittsburgh to end the regular season. West Virginia's victory over Rutgers on Sunday could mean the difference between finishing fourth or fifth in the conference standings.
“This is huge because the first four seeds are going to be the home team in that first game,” said Sunday’s winning pitcher Billy Gross. “You ask anybody and the majority of them would want to be the home team.”
Gross has been the guy West Virginia has been leaning on of late. The pattern this year in conference games has been for the Mountaineers to win game one with Jarryd Summers on the hill and then to lose game two on Saturday. That happened again this weekend, placing even more pressure on Gross to come through in the rubber game of the series.
Gross understood what was at stake when he took the mound on Sunday.
“It’s always in the back of your head, ‘All right, I’ve got to show up today for us to take this series.’ I just go out there and try and give us a chance to win,” he explained. “I said before the season that if all of our starters can get to at least the sixth inning with three runs or less, I feel like we can win a lot of ballgames that way and that was basically my mindset going out there.”
Gross held true to his word against Rutgers, taking advantage of a nine-run, 14-hit offensive performance by the Mountaineers. He gave up eight hits – all singles – and walked just two batters in his complete-game performance. Considering what was riding on today’s game, it may have been the most important pitching performance of his career.
“Without a doubt this was probably our biggest game of the year just because if we take this series we get back on track,” Gross said. “Rutgers is a good team and they took it to us yesterday. We had to come out here today, be the aggressor, and take it to them. We did a really good job of coming out and just playing our game. Sometimes we can kind of get away from that.”
West Virginia needed a senior on the mound Sunday to be able to cope with the unsettling circumstances that included a three-hour rain delay and a light rain that lasted most of the game.
“Yesterday they said the game was going to start at 12 o’clock and the next thing you know it’s pushed back three hours,” said Gross. “I was at least fortunate that we really didn’t have to get to the field until noon because we knew it was going to be pushed back.
“I woke up at 8 o’clock and ate breakfast and everything and I’m already getting into my routine to pitch and then you hear it’s backed up to 2 o’clock and then 3 o’clock. It didn’t even start until 3:30, but that’s just part of the game and you have to deal with it.”
Gross ran into trouble in the second, third and fourth innings, but he was able to steer clear of big innings giving up just one run in each frame.
“We were just trying to establish the fastball and the changeup and that was starting to get hit around,” Gross said. “I only gave up eight singles and that was big because Coach (Greg Van Zant) always stresses it takes three singles to score a run if you don’t walk anybody. It was hard for me to get into a groove and toward the end we started to get them off-balance more and getting a lot more ground balls.”
Gross said he was simply happy to put another W up for the Mountaineers with the regular season coming down to the final two weeks.
“As long as we have a lead when I’m coming out on the mound I am happy,” he said. “I don’t care if it’s 15-13 as long as we’re winning the ballgame - I’m fine with that whether I’m throwing a shutout or getting creamed.”
West Virginia is idle this week with final examinations before taking on fifth-place Cincinnati in Morgantown this weekend.
“This series coming up this weekend against Cincinnati is huge just because they dominated us last year all four games we played them – the three that we played at their place and the game in the Big East Tournament,” Gross said.
“We are just trying to finish as high as we can. Who knows, maybe (first place) South Florida loses every game, so we’re just trying to get to the highest seed possible right now.”
