Jayhawks Cool Down Mountaineers 13-3

The West Virginia Mountaineers (24-20, 7-10) were beatdown by the Kansas Jayhawks (21-25, 4-12) Saturday afternoon 13-3 in Lawrence, Kansas ending their four-game winning streak.

The Mountaineers drew first blood in the second inning when Marques Inman doubled to left centerfield, then Kyle Gray hit a bomb over the centerfield wall for a two-run homerun and West Virginia had the early 2-0 lead.

Kansas started to gain their momentum in the third inning when David Kyriacou singled through the gap on the right side, Mateo Zunica drew a walk and Jaxx Groshans bounced one up the middle just over West Virginia starting pitcher Kade Strowd’s head for a base hit.

The bases were loaded when Kade hit batter Devin Foyle to bring in the Jayhawks first run of the game.

The Jayhawks started the fourth inning with back to back hits. Brett Vosik doubled down the right field line and Owen Tayler had an infield single to first base.

With runners on first and third, David Kyriacou hit a sacrifice fly to right field scoring Vosik, tying the game up at two.

Kansas scored 11 more unanswered runs with three runs in the fifth, six in the sixth and two in the seventh inning before Kyle Gray hit his second homerun of the day in the eighth inning to make it a 13-3 game.

The Jayhawks starting pitcher Sophomore Ryan Zeferjahn shut down West Virginia after they had 21 hits on 23 hits the previous night. His fastball was around the mid 90’s for a full seven innings and kept the Mountaineers off-balance with his off-speed pitches.

Ryan had eight strikeouts on the day and if it wasn’t for a hot Kyle Gray he might have pitched a shutout.

West Virginia did manage seven hits on the day but was only 2-9 with runners on and 1-7 with runners in scoring position.

The Jayhawks bats were hot and the Mountaineers couldn’t get their offense going on Saturday.

This is a tough loss for a Mountaineer team that had a great game one Friday night. A series deciding game three is Sunday at 12:00 pm est in Lawrence, Kansas.