Mountaineers drop Game 3 to No. 11 Texas Tech

The West Virginia Mountaineers (22-13, 6-6) fall in game three to the No. 11 Texas Tech Red Raiders (23-11, 6-6) 3-0. The game was set to start at noon inside Monongalia County Ballpark; however, the weather turned for the worse and continuous rain delayed the game for three hours.

WVU took the first two games and was looking to sweep the preseason Big 12 favorites. The rain delay may have affected the crowd turnout and may have cooled off the bats, or the Mountaineers may have gotten complacent after they took the series in walk-off fashion Saturday evening.

“We talked the last two days how easy it is to play in front of great crowds and great atmospheres. All of a sudden, you win the first two games, you have a rain delay, the same crowd doesn’t show up and it sucks the energy out of the whole ballpark, that happens. You play in a lot of different atmospheres, you got to learn how to play in each one of them.” Said WVU head coach Randy Mazey.

West Virginia starting pitcher Kade Strowd got himself in a couple a couple of jams to start the game, but as he does so often, he worked his way out and pitched nearly flawless in the third and fourth inning.

Kade walked back-to-back Red Raiders in the fifth before Gabe Holt drilled an RBI double down the leftfield line. Strowd followed it up with another walk and with the bases loaded, West Virginia head coach Randy Mazey went to his bullpen and brought in the freshman right hander Ryan Bergert.

Now with the bases loaded and no out, Bergert limited the damage, only giving up an RBI sacrifice fly in leftfield territory and getting out of the inning.

Texas Tech starting pitcher went the full nine innings, holding the Mountaineers to only two hits no walks and had nine strikeouts on the day.

“Their kid did a great job.” Said Mazey. “He pitched the whole game really with one pitch, it was a really good pitch and he had great command of it. So, if you want to learn how to pitch, today that was the guy to watch.”

Texas Tech tacked on another run in the eighth as West Virginia was unable to complete the sweep, falling to the Red Raiders 3-0.

The Mountaineers are back in action on Wednesday as they travel to Happy Valley to take on the Penn State Nittany Lions with the first pitch set for 7:00 pm.