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Twelve-Day Road Trip Begins in Louisiana
March 01, 2017 06:39 PM | Baseball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Winners of five in a row, including two at the defending national champions, the West Virginia University baseball team travels to Louisiana to begin a nine-game, four-city roadtrip. The trip begins at Nicholls on Thursday, March 2, and continues with a three-game series at Tulane, from March 3-5.
The weekend begins on Thursday, at 7 p.m. ET in Thibodaux, Louisiana, at Nicholls’ Ray E. Didier Field. A three-game series at Tulane opens in New Orleans with a 7:30 p.m. contest on Friday. Saturday’s first pitch is set for 5 p.m., while Sunday’s finale at Greer Field at Turchin Stadium is at 2 p.m.
West Virginia is facing both Nicholls and Tulane for the first time in team history.
The Mountaineers (5-2) have won five in a row, capped by a perfect 4-0 weekend at last weekend’s Caravelle Resort Tournament in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The tournament sweep included two wins over No. 18 Coastal Carolina, the defending national champions. West Virginia beat the Chanticleers 22-9 on Saturday, before a 4-1 win on Monday.
The Colonels (4-4) are coming off a 3-2 loss at No. 3 LSU on Tuesday after a 2-1 weekend at the Mardi Gras Invitational. Nicholls is 3-1 at home and 1-1 against ranked teams. The Green Wave (1-6) are coming off an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2016, but have lost their last six games. Tulane is 1-2 at home and plays at Southern Miss on Wednesday night.
Freshman right-hander Isaiah Kearns (1-0) is slated to make his first career start on Thursday at Nicholls, after he pitched 2.0 innings in relief and earning the victory on Saturday at Coastal. He will face senior righty Daniel Goff. On Friday, junior righty BJ Myers (1-1) will go for his second consecutive win against Tulane right-hander Corey Merrill (1-1). WVU’s starter on Saturday has not been determined, but the Green Wave will start right-hander J.P. France (0-1). Sunday, Conner Dotson (2-0) looks to continue his strong start to the season, where he has a team-best 1.50 ERA in 12.0 innings. Dotson will square off against lefty Ross Massey (0-1).
FOLLOWING ALONG
Video streams and live stats will be available for all four games this weekend, and those links can be found on the baseball schedule page on WVUsports.com.
Additional behind-the-scenes updates, news and notes from Louisiana can be found on social media by following and connecting with the team at @WVUBaseball on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
UP NEXT: BAYOU ROADTRIP CONTINUES
Following a day off on Monday, March 6, the Mountaineers conclude their stay in the Bayou State with a pair of games at Southeastern Louisiana on March 7 and 8. West Virginia’s nine-game, 12-day roadtrip then concludes with a weekend series at Old Dominion from March 10-12.
LAST WEEK: SWEEPING MYRTLE BEACH AND THE DEFENDING CHAMPS
West Virginia extended its winning streak to five games with a 4-0 record in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, at the Caravelle Resort Tournament. The weekend was highlighted by a pair of wins at No. 18 Coastal Carolina, the defending national champions. Darius Hill extended his hitting streak to a career-best nine games with six hits, six RBI, six runs scored and two home runs on the weekend. He hit .429 with a .857 slugging percentage.
Seven stellar innings from BJ Myers and a five-run seventh inning propelled WVU to a 5-3 victory over George Mason on Feb. 24. In 7.0 innings, Myers allowed one run on four hits, just two for extra-bases, and struck out seven with one walk. After allowing a home run in the first, Myers retired 10 in a row. The bats broke through in the seventh, as Jackson Cramer walked with two outs and the bases loaded to tie the game at 1-1. Cole Austin followed with a bases-clearing triple to the wall in right field to score three and give WVU a 4-1 lead. Marques Inman then doubled to score Austin and extend the advantage to 5-1.
Playing a defending national champion for the first time in program history, West Virginia’s bats broke out for 22 runs on 29 hits in a 22-9 victory at No. 18 Coastal Carolina the following day. The Mountaineers hit six home runs, scored at least one run in all but two innings and batted around twice. The 22 runs are WVU’s most since it scored 23 vs. Duquesne on April 21, 2010. The 29 hits is three shy of tying the school record of 32, set in 2009, and West Virginia’s six home runs is one shy of the program record, set in 1997. Additionally, WVU’s 56 at-bats is a new school record. Jackson Cramer led the offensive charge with a career-best five hits, four extra-base hits and three doubles, all one shy of tying the school record. He added a career-high six RBIs and hit one home run. Cramer was 5-7, and his fifth-inning double drove in the eventual game-winning run. Every WVU starter had at least two hits, while seven had at least three. All but one starter drove in at least one run and four had multiple RBIs.
After getting no-hit for six innings, West Virginia rallied with two runs in the eighth and ninth to beat Ball State, 4-1, on Feb. 26. WVU and BSU were locked in a pitcher’s duel, with just three total hits through seven innings, before Darius Hill homered with two outs in the eighth to give WVU a 2-1 lead. A pair of wild pitches in the ninth scored two insurance runs. WVU had four hits and gave up just two, both season-lows. Making his first career start, Carter Camp pitched 5.0 innings and allowed one first-inning run on two hits with seven strikeouts and no walks. Braden Zarbnisky followed with 3.0 no-hit innings, striking out five and earning the win. Marques Inman broke up the no-hitter in the seventh inning.
West Virginia closed the week with a 4-1 win at Coastal on Feb. 27. WVU took an early 2-0 lead in the first inning, thanks to back-to-back RBI hits by Jackson Cramer and Cole Austin. Austin followed with a towering home run in the third and an RBI single by TJ Lake scored the final run in the sixth. Conner Dotson earned the win with 6.0 strong innings with a career-best 10 strikeouts. The bullpen followed with three shutout innings, holding CCU to one hit. Dotson allowed just one run on seven hits, but four of those hits, and the lone run, came in the first inning. Dotson faced the minimum three batters in the second, third and fifth innings, which included a stretch where he struck out seven of eight batters faced.
SCOUTING NICHOLLS
Nicholls owns a 4-4 record and is coming off a 3-2 loss at No. 3 LSU on Tuesday. The Colonels are 3-1 at home, including a 3-1 win over No. 13 Louisiana-Lafayette and back-to-back wins over LIU Brooklyn and Wagner at last weekend’s Mardi Gras Invitational.
Lee Clark leads the team with a .353 batting average and is tied for second with six hits. Joey Morales’s seven hits and seven runs scored are team highs, while Gavin Webby’s six RBIs leads the squad.
On the mound, Mike Hanchar has made four appearances with two starts and leads Nicholls with a 1.10 ERA and is one of four pitchers with a win. He also has a team-best 20 strikeouts in 16.1 innings.
Seth Thibodeaux is in his seventh season with the Colonels, where he owns a 176-165-1 record. The conference coach of the year in 2014, he guided Nicholls to back-to-back 30-win seasons in 2014-15 for the first time since 1992-93.
SERIES HISTORY VS. THE COLONELS
West Virginia has never faced Nicholls. The Mountaineers are a perfect 5-0 against current teams in the Southland Conference. WVU is 4-0 against New Orleans after a four-game sweep in 2013 in Morgantown. In 2015, WVU traveled to Stephen F. Austin and won 14-5 in a mid-week contest.
SCOUTING TULANE
After making the NCAA Tournament in 2016, Tulane is 1-6 to open the season. The Green Wave are 1-2 at home after opening the year with a 4-3 win against Air Force before a 3-2 loss to the Falcons and a 7-4 loss to Army. Prior to hosting the Mountaineers, Tulane travels to Southern Mississippi on Wednesday night.
Hunter Williams leads the team with a .400 average, 12 hits and a .667 slugging percentage and is tied for the team lead with two home runs and is second with five RBIs. Jarret DeHart leads the squad with six RBI and has eight hits.
Corey Merrill has earned Tulane’s first win of the season, and is 1-1 in 2017. Chase Solesky leads the team with a 1.29 ERA in 7.0 innings pitched. J.P. France has a team-best nine strikeouts.
Travis Jewett is in his first season at Tulane after spending the previous four seasons as an assistant coach at Vanderbilt. Jewett is the Green Wave’s 24th head coach but just the fifth since 1967. He replaced David Pierce, who is now the head coach at Texas.
SERIES HISTORY VS. THE GREEN WAVE
The Mountaineers are also facing Tulane for the first time in team history. WVU is 55-66 all-time against current members of the American Athletic Conference. That includes a 23-28 record away from home. However, West Virginia’s last matchup against an AAC team was in 2012, before coach Randy Mazey’s arrival and when WVU was in the Big East.
QUICK HITS: KEY TEAM NOTES
- West Virginia is celebrating its 125th year of baseball. Founded in 1892, WVU is 2,100-1,504-19 all-time.
- West Virginia has won five in a row and improved to 5-2 on the season after a 4-0 weekend in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
- WVU’s 5-2 start to the year follows a 5-1 start in 2016, the first time since 2006-07 the Mountaineers have started back-to-back seasons with at least five wins in their first seven games. Just like in 2017, WVU’s start to 2016 included a five-game winning streak.
- West Virginia went 2-0 against No. 18 Coastal Carolina last weekend, its first games against a ranked foe in 2017 and its first-ever games against a defending national champion.
- Darius Hill has a career-best and team-leading nine-game hitting streak. He has at least one hit in each of WVU’s first seven games and has two or more RBIs in four games in 2017. Hill leads the team with a .387 average, 12 hits, 10 RBIs, two home runs and seven runs scored.
- In West Virginia 22-9 win at No. 18 Coastal Carolina on Feb. 25, WVU’s 22 runs were the most since it scored 23 against Duquesne in 2010. WVU’s 29 hits was three shy of the school record of 32, set in 2009, and the Mountaineers’ six home runs was one shy of the school record of seven, set in 1997. WVU’s 56 at-bats is a new school record. Jackson Cramer had a career-best five hits, four extra-base hits and three doubles, all one shy of tying the school record, and he added a career-high six RBIs.
- Every starter in the lineup has had at least one hit twice in WVU’s first seven games, while every starter has recorded an RBI once.
- Coach Randy Mazey is 129-103 at West Virginia and became the fifth coach in program history to eclipse the 100-win mark and the second to accomplish the feat in his first four seasons.
- West Virginia was voted to finish fifth in the 2017 Big 12 Conference baseball preseason coaches’ poll, WVU’s highest preseason ranking since joining the conference in 2013.
- WVU won 36 games in 2016, the most wins in a single season in coach Randy Mazey’s four years and the most since 2009 (37).
- WVU went 3-1 at the 2016 Big 12 Championship and advanced to its first Big 12 Championship game and first conference title game since 1996.
- Darius Hill and Ivan Gonzalez were named to Freshman All-America teams after leading WVU in several offensive categories as freshmen in 2016
- WVU has had 14 draft selection in coach Randy Mazey’s four seasons, the most draft picks in a four-year stretch in team history.
- Attendance has increased in each of WVU’s first four seasons in the Big 12 Conference, highlighted by a program-record total of 40,390 fans in 2016, for an average of 1,346 fans per game. WVU averaged a record 1,507 n the inaugural season at Monongalia County Ballpark in 2015.
Season tickets, single game tickets, flex plan tickets and mini packs for the 2017 WVU baseball season are on sale now. Fans can purchase tickets by calling 1-800-WVU GAME, going to WVUGAME.com or visiting the Mountaineer Ticket Office in the WVU Coliseum. The 2017 schedule is available on WVUsports.com.
For more information on the Mountaineers, follow WVU Baseball on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and visit WVUsports.com.
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