MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University baseball team concludes its regular season at home with a three-game series against Baylor from Thursday, May 17 - Saturday, May 19, at Monongalia County Ballpark.
First pitch on Thursday, May 17, and Friday, May 18 is set for 6:30 p.m., while Saturday's Senior Day contest will commence at 1 p.m.
Thursday, May 17, 6:30 p.m. ET –
Video |
Radio |
Stats
Friday, May 18, 6:30 p.m. ET –
Video |
Radio |
Stats
Saturday, May 19, 1 p.m. ET –
Video |
Radio |
Stats
Tickets |
Twitter |
Facebook |
Instagram
Tickets are available for all three games at
WVUGAME.com, by calling 1-800-WVU GAME, at the Mountaineer Ticket Office at the WVU Coliseum or on game day at Monongalia County Ballpark. Admission for WVU students is free with a valid student I.D.
Friday night is the final Friday Night Happy Hour of the year, with half-off beverages available from 5:30-6:30 p.m. Saturday is Family Day, where fans can purchase four tickets and receive a $10 concession voucher for just $25. It also is the final trading card giveaway and postgame autograph session of the year, for kids 18 and under. The home finale is National Armed Forces Day, with $3 tickets for members of the military with a military ID. Additionally, fans at Thursday and Friday's games can play Baseball Bingo.
Prior to Saturday's game, graduating seniors
Shane Ennis and
BJ Myers will be honored for their outstanding careers in the Old Gold and Blue.
The Mountaineers (26-23, 8-13 Big 12) conclude the regular season at home for just the second time in their six years in the Big 12 Conference. WVU enters the final weekend of the regular season with a 14-6 mark at Monongalia County Ballpark and has won four of its five weekend series at home in 2018.
The Bears (30-18, 11-10 Big 12), one of the hottest teams in the country, come to Morgantown having won 16 of their last 18 games and four consecutive weekend series. Baylor is ranked No. 27 by Collegiate Baseball.
Three games separate WVU and BU in the Big 12 standings. West Virginia is 8-13 and in seventh place, while Baylor is 11-10 and in fifth place. Both teams have clinched a Big 12 Championship berth and will play for postseason seeding this weekend.
The Mountaineers rank among the NCAA and Big 12 leaders in several categories. West Virginia leads the Big 12 and is No. 18 nationally with 86 stolen bases, while WVU is No. 2 in the league and No. 15 in the country with 49 double plays turned. Additionally, the Mountaineers are No. 3 in the conference with a .281 batting average and 29 sacrifice bunts.
Individually, several players rank inside the top-25 nationally in a variety of categories.
Kyle Gray is No. 10 in the country with a .707 slugging percentage, while
Braden Zarbnisky is No. 14 with 0.93 walks per game and 15th with 0.60 stolen bases per game.
Marques Inman is No. 23 in the NCAA with 0.40 doubles per game and
Darius Hill ranks No. 24 with an average of 13.1 at-bats per strikeout.
Gray's hit streak was snapped at 23 games last Friday, the longest hit streak by a Mountaineer since 2009. A day later, Gray hit his 14th home run of the year and 17th of his career. His 14 homers are tied for sixth-most in a single season in program history and are the most by a Mountaineer since Jedd Gyorko's team-record-tying 19 in 2010. Additionally, Hill extended his reached-base streak to 25 games over the weekend.
After continuing his hot hitting at the plate,
Tyler Doanes was named the Big 12 Newcomer of the Week and the WVU Student-Athlete of the Week on Monday. Doanes led the Mountaineers with a .600 batting average last weekend at TCU and hit his first career home run, an inside-the-parker, while posting a team-leading 1.000 slugging percentage. Doanes led the Big 12 among freshmen with a .500 batting average last week and ranked No. 7 overall with a .563 on-base percentage, both team-leading totals.
FOLLOWING ALONG
There are a number of ways to follow along with this weekend's games, with
Dan Zangrilli and Ernie Galusky calling the action.
- The games will be streamed live for free on WVUsports.com/Watch and the WVU Gameday App. New this season, fans also can watch the video streams live via Roku and Apple TV, by searching for the "West Virginia Mountaineers" channel.
- Fans can listen to the games on the Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG on various affiliates throughout the state, while fans across the country can tune in to the broadcasts online at WVUsports.com and on the WVU Gameday App, as well as the TuneIn App on their mobile device.
- Additional behind-the-scenes updates, news and notes can be found on social media by following and connecting with the team on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @WVUBaseball.
SCOUTING BAYLOR
Baylor begins the final weekend of the regular season with a 30-18 record and an 11-10 mark in Big 12 play. Winners of 16 of its last 18 games, BU is coming off a home series win over No. 20 Oklahoma State. An 11-6 loss on Saturday snapped a 13-game win streak. BU is ranked No. 27 in this week's Collegiate Baseball poll and also is receiving votes in the latest Coaches Poll and National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association rankings.
Andy Thomas leads the team with 64 hits and a .362 batting average in 177 at-bats. Davis Wendzel is second with 60 hits and a .339 average, while he leads the Bears with 40 RBIs and a .582 slugging percentage.
On the mound, Joe Heineman has a 1.86 ERA in 19.1 innings in relief, while Cody Bradford and Hayden Kettler each have six wins. Bradford also leads the team with 70 strikeouts and 76.0 innings pitched.
Steve Rodriguez is in his third season at Baylor and is 89-70 in Waco. The 2017 Big 12 Coach of the Year, Rodriguez led the Bears to the 2017 NCAA tournament after a 12-year run at Pepperdine.
SERIES HISTORY VS. THE BEARS
West Virginia is 9-7 all-time against Baylor, following a road series win and a victory at the Big 12 Championship last year. WVU is 4-1 at home, 4-5 in Waco and 1-1 at a neutral site. All 16 games have come since 2013, when the Mountaineers joined the Big 12.
WVU lost the first series, in 2013 in Waco, and followed with a sweep of a two-game series in Charleston, West Virginia, in 2014. Baylor then earned a 9-4 win at the 2014 Big 12 Championship. West Virginia lost a road series in 2015 before a series win at Monongalia County Ballpark in 2016.
WVU went 3-1 against BU last year, with a series win to open Big 12 play at then-No. 10 Baylor, from March 17-19, and a Big 12 Championship victory.
- In a 7-1 win on March 17, BJ Myers allowed one run on five hits in 8.0 innings, as the offense scored a run in the first, took a 3-0 lead in the third and never trailed. Myers held Baylor hitless in four of the first five innings. Offensively, all but one starter had a hit and five had an RBI.
- The Mountaineers won the series with a back-and-forth, 6-5 win on March 18. WVU had runners reach base in all but one inning and again never trailed. West Virginia led 3-0 early, but Baylor chipped away and tied the game at 5-5 in the seventh. WVU answered in the ninth, thanks to a two-out RBI single.
- WVU fell short of a series sweep with a 5-1 loss on March 19. Marques Inman had three hits, going 3-4, and four freshmen relievers combined to throw 3.2 shutout innings, allowing just three hits.
- WVU opened the Big 12 Championship with an 11-1, run-rule win. West Virginia scored seven runs in the first inning and Isaiah Kearns threw an 8.0-inning complete game, allowing one run on three hits with six strikeouts and no walks.
ON DECK: BIG 12 CHAMPIONSHIP
Postseason play begins for the Mountaineers next week at the Big 12 Championship, from May 23-27 at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City. WVU has earned a berth in the championship in each of its six seasons in the Big 12. Seedings and game times for the double-elimination event will be announced on Saturday, May 19.
LAST TIME OUT: WEEKEND AT TCU
West Virginia traveled to Fort Worth, Texas, for a series at TCU, from May 11-13. WVU won the opener, 4-3, before TCU claimed the next two, 10-4 and 8-5. Friday's win was West Virginia's first-ever at TCU and was WVU's third in its last four games in the series.
- West Virginia scored the go-ahead run in the eighth inning to beat TCU in the series opener on Friday, 4-3. WVU took a 1-0 lead in the first inning and led 3-0 in the middle of the sixth, but TCU tied the game at 3-3 in the bottom of the sixth. Darius Hill drove in the game's first run and the game-winner and had a career-high-tying four hits and two RBIs. Tristen Hudson earned his second career win in as many games, allowing just one hit in 2.1 innings, and Alek Manoah earned his second save of the year. Kyle Gray's hit streak was snapped at 23 games, the longest hit streak by a Mountaineer since 2009.
- TCU evened the series the next day with a 10-4 win. West Virginia trailed 5-0 after three innings but rallied with a three-run top of the fourth to cut the deficit to two. However, TCU responded with two runs in the bottom half of the fourth. Gray hit his 14th home run of the season and Ivan Gonzalez hit his first of the year.
- In Sunday's finale, TCU won the series with an 8-5 victory. The two teams traded runs in the second and WVU scored again in the third and fourth, but TCU scored three in the bottom of the third and added single runs in the seventh and eighth after West Virginia cut the deficit to one, at 6-5, in the sixth. Jimmy Galusky hit his seventh home run of the year and Tyler Doanes his first. Doanes' homer was an inside-the-park home run.
Single game tickets for the 2018 season are on sale now. Fans can purchase tickets at
WVUGAME.com, call 1-800-WVU GAME or visit the Mountaineer Ticket Office at the WVU Coliseum. The 2018 schedule, with game times, can be found on
the baseball schedule page on WVUsports.com.
For more information on the Mountaineers, follow WVU Baseball on
Twitter,
Facebook and
Instagram and visit
WVUsports.com.
