Mountaineers come up short in Big 12 Opener

The West Virginia Mountaineers (13-8, 0-1) drop game one to the Baylor Bears (14-6, 1-0) 6-5 after winning eight of their last 10. WVU led 5-3 going into the seventh inning but Baylor scores a run in each of the final three innings in walk-off fashion Friday night in Waco.

Marcus Inman blasted a two-run homerun that cleared the scoreboard in left-centerfield in the top of the first inning to give the Mountaineers a 2-0 lead.

Baylor tied the game up in the bottom of the inning on an RBI triple from Richard Cunningham in deep centerfield that just missed the outstretched glove of centerfielder Brandon White and Andy Thomas scored him on a sacrifice ground ball to second.

Josh Bissonette tripled in the third, then Nick Loftin brought him in on a sac line drive to leftfield to give the Bears a 3-2 lead.

In the top of the fifth inning, West Virginia head coach Randy Mazey used his speed after six consecutive outs. Brandon White and Tevin Tucker got on base with back-to-back bunts. Tyler Doanes laid a sacrifice bunt down the third base line to advance them into scoring positions.  Then, Ivan Gonzalez drew a walk to load the bases

Marcus Inman doubled into right-center on a line drive clearing the bases giving the Mountaineers a 5-3 lead.

West Virginia starting pitcher Alek Manoah settled in, only giving up a hit through four innings and no runs. However, Baylor started to get more bat on the ball in the seventh.

Chase Wehsener and Nick Lofton started the bottom of the inning with singles. Cunningham got them into scoring position on a bunt back to the Manoah and Davis Wendzel scored Wehsener on a sacrifice fly to leftfield to get the Bears back within one.

Manoah would come out in the eighth and Sam Kessler took the mound with 1 out and a man on third, before Josh Bissonette poked a lined drive onto rightfield for an RBI single to tie the game at five.

Nick Lofton started the bottom of the ninth inning with a single to rightfield, followed by a bunt from Cunningham advancing Lofton to second to set up Davis Wendzel for a hard groundball back up the middle and Lofton raced home to beat the throw from Brandon White for the RBI walk-off single.

West Virginia will try to even the series up Saturday at 2:05 est.