Mountaineers Host Hokies Wednesday

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University baseball team returns home to host Virginia Tech on Wednesday, May 9, at 6:30 p.m. ET, at Monongalia County Ballpark, in a contest that will be televised regionally on AT&T SportsNet.

Wednesday, May 9, 6:30 p.m. ET – TV: AT&T SportsNet | Video (Out of Market) | Radio | Stats
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Wednesday's game is a Gold Rush, and fans are encouraged to wear gold. Foam fingers will be given out to the first 1,000 fans, and all fans can play Baseball Bingo.

Tickets are available 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.

The contest marks the first time a WVU baseball game at Monongalia County Ballpark has aired on AT&T SportsNet.

The Mountaineers (24-21) and Hokies (20-26) meet for the 89th time and the fifth consecutive season on Wednesday. WVU has won two in a row and eight of the last 12 games between the former Southern Conference and Big East rivals.

West Virginia has won four of its last six games and seven consecutive midweek contests. Virginia Tech has won two in a row and has had the last week off, after a pair of midweek wins on May 1 and 2.

Junior Kyle Gray enters the week with a career-long and team-best 22-game hit streak, the longest by a Mountaineer since 2009, while he has 13 home runs, tied for seventh-most in a single season in program history. Gray hit four home runs last week and was named the Big 12 Player of the Week, one of Collegiate Baseball's National Players of the Week and the WVU Student-Athlete of the Week.

The Mountaineers rank among the NCAA and Big 12 leaders in several categories. West Virginia leads the Big 12 and is No. 22 nationally with 78 stolen bases, while WVU is No. 2 in the league and No. 14 in the country with 45 double plays turned. Additionally, the Mountaineers are No. 3 in the conference with 15 triples and a .437 slugging percentage.

Individually, Marques Inman ranks No. 10 nationally with 0.44 doubles per game, while Gray is No. 11 with a .709 slugging percentage. Braden Zarbnisky's 0.97 walks per game is No. 12 in the country, and he also is No. 17 in the NCAA with 0.58 stolen bases per game. Darius Hill also ranks inside the top-25 nationally, at No. 20, with an average of 13.7 at-bats per strikeout.

FOLLOWING ALONG
There are a number of ways to follow along with Wednesday's game, with Dan Zangrilli and Ernie Galusky calling the action.

The game will be televised regionally on AT&T SportsNet. The AT&T SportsNet Channel Finder and Territory Map can both be found on Pittsburgh-attsn.att.com.
The game also will be streamed live on WVUsports.com/Watch for free outside of the AT&T SportsNet viewing footprint. The stream will be blacked out inside the viewing footprint. The stream is available on WVUsports.com and the WVU Gameday App. New this season, fans also can watch the video stream live via Roku and Apple TV, by searching for the "WV Mountaineers" channel.
Fans can listen to the game 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. Dan Zangrilli will have the call.
Direct links to the video streams, radio broadcasts and live stats can be found on the baseball schedule page on WVUsports.com.
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 VIRGINIA TECH
Virginia Tech is 20-26 on the season and 8-16 in ACC play. The Hokies, who have not played since May 2, won both midweek contests last week, 8-3 vs. VMI and 11-5 at Liberty, after a series loss at home to No. 9 Duke.

Luke Horanski leads the team with a .314 average, while Tom Stoffel and Sam Fragale both have 58 hits and seven home runs. Fragale also leads the team with 38 RBIs, 14 doubles and a .495 slugging percentage.

On the mound, Graham Seitz's four wins leads the team, while Ian Seymour has a team-best 3.18 ERA in 62.1 innings pitched. Connor Coward has 74 strikeouts, while Andrew McDonald has a team-best five saves.

John Szefc is in his first season as the head coach at Virginia Tech, and holds a career record of 412-285-3 in 13 seasons as a head coach. Szefc comes to the Hokies from Maryland, where he led the Terrapins to the NCAA Tournament in 2017 and a matchup with WVU in the Winston-Salem Regional.

SERIES HISTORY VS. HOKIES
Former Southern Conference and Big East rivals, West Virginia and Virginia Tech have met 88 times. WVU trails the all-time series 53-34-1, but has won three of the last four, including an 8-6 road win in 2017. Under coach Randy Mazey, the Mountaineers are 3-1 in the series. West Virginia is 18-15 at home, 12-27-1 in Blacksburg and 4-11 at a neutral site.

WVU and Virginia Tech met for the first time in 1905, in Morgantown, where the Hokies won, 6-9. West Virginia got its first win in the third game of the series, in 1922. The Mountaineers won both games that year, 3-2 and 11-7, both in Blacksburg.

In 2016 at Monongalia County Ballpark, WVU scored a run in five of the first six innings and fought off a late comeback attempt by the Hokies to beat Virginia Tech, 5-4.

On April 25, 2017, West Virginia capped a five-game road trip with an 8-6 win at Virginia Tech, thanks to a six-run fourth inning and a dominant bullpen.

The Mountaineers trailed 5-0 early, but responded with six runs in the fourth inning, three of them unearned, to take a 6-5 lead. The Hokies answered to tie the game in the fifth, but again WVU responded with a run to take the lead back for good the following inning.

Reliever Jackson Sigman fueled the win with 3.2 lights-out innings in relief, striking out a career-best eight batters while allowing just one hit with no runs and no walks. Sigman picked up the win.

West Virginia's six-run fourth was highlighted by a three-run home run by Kyle Davis. He led the team with three RBIs. Brandon White scored two runs and extended his hitting streak to eight games and his reached-base streak to 16 games, both career-longs.

ON DECK: LAST BIG 12 ROAD WEEKEND
West Virginia plays its final regular-season road games this weekend at TCU. The series in Fort Worth, Texas, begins on Friday, May 11, at 7:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. CT. Saturday's first pitch is set for 5 p.m. ET/4 p.m. CT, and the game will air on FSSW. The series wraps up on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET/1 p.m. CT.

LAST TIME OUT: ROAD SERIES AT KANSAS
West Virginia is coming off a series loss at Kansas. WVU won the opener, 21-3, before its four-game win streak was snapped with a 13-3 loss on Saturday. KU won the series finale on Sunday, 5-2.

In the series opener at Kansas, WVU scored 21 runs on 23 hits, as 11 batters had at least one hit and West Virginia scored three or more runs in five innings. Seven Mountaineers had multiple hits and seven drove in at least two runs. Kyle Gray led the way with a career-high-tying four hits and four RBIs with four runs scored while hitting the first of four home runs on the weekend and finishing a triple shy of the cycle. Marques Inman also homered in the contest, his sixth of the year. BJ Myers earned the win and had his fourth quality start of the season and 17th of his career. WVU's 21 runs and 18-run victory were both program-records in a Big 12 Conference game, while the Mountaineers' 21 runs and 23 hits are both the most since WVU scored 22 runs on 29 hits in a 22-9 victory at No. 18 Coastal Carolina on Feb. 25, 2017.
Gray homered twice for the third time this season and extended his hit streak the following day, on May 5, but it was not enough in a 13-3 loss. WVU took a 2-0 lead in the second, but the Jayhawks responded with runs in each of the next five innings to halt West Virginia's win streak.
Kansas won Sunday's finale, 5-2, as Gray had two hits, including his fourth homer of the weekend, to extend his hit streak to 22 games. Isaiah Kearns struck out a career-best nine batters in 5.0 innings, striking out the side twice.

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.

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