Mountaineers Win Game 2 Over Cowboys

The West Virginia Mountaineers (16-16 2-6) took game two from the Oklahoma State Cowboys (19-13-1 8-3) 10-7 at Monongalia County Ball Park.

West Virginia starting pitcher Kade Dowd had a slow start to the game, walking the first batter and hitting the second, but he bounced back with back to back strikeouts before Oklahoma Stat’s Christian Funk hit one up the middle scoring Cameron Dobbs.

The Mountaineer bats were hot early scoring six runs in the bottom of the first taking the early 6-1 lead.

Braden Zarbnisky started it off with a walk and Brandon White followed it up with a hit up the middle of the field advancing Zarbnisky to third.

Darius Hill singled through the right side of the field bringing home Zarbnisky and White took third.

Marcus Inman hit one back up the middle get the first of his four RBI’s on the day.

Kyle Gray was hit by a pitch putting Hill at third Inman at second and Gray at first base setting up a Chase Illig two run hit to left field.

Freshman Tyler Doanes cleared the bases with a triple giving West Virginia there first six run inning since the Big XII Tournament in a win over Texas Tech on May 26^th 2017 12-7.

Oklahoma State scored a run in the fourth inning with Michael Neustifter doubling to left field and moving to third on a wild pitch scoring on a Cade Cabbiness groundball back to the pitcher.

The Mountaineers were leading 6-2 going to the bottom of the fifth inning and they added another run on a Tyler Doanes hit to centerfield bringing in Gray.

West Virginia took out Kade Strowd in the sixth inning after a ten-strikeout performance. “He struck out nine or 10 and when you do that your pitch count gets super high. Its way better if they can make an out on the first pitch instead of the sixth pitch and his pitch count got up there. He got over 100 pitches and started to get tired.” said head coach Randy Mazey. “I’ll take 10 strikeouts, don’t think I’m complaining.”

Sam Kessler came in with a man on first and was called for a balk moving the baserunner to second. Neustifter singled to right field and advanced to second with Hill misplaying the ball. Christian Funk scored on the error.

Carson McCusker scored Neustifter with a single to right field closing the West Virginia lead to three, 7-4.

The Mountaineers gave themselves a bit of a cushion in the bottom of the sixth with Brandon White starting it off with a hit up the middle. Darius Hill moved White to second base with a groundball to second base and White would steal third base before Marques Inman hit a grounder to third scoring White.

Oklahoma State closed the gap back up to three in the 7^th inning after a Jon Littell hit up the middle and Funk scored him on a double to right field.

The Mountainers out Alex Monoah on the mound to start the eighth inning and the right hander struggled but got himself out of the jam.

Monoah gave up a walk and hit a batter before giving up a to Matt Kroon scoring Cabbiness.

With two outs and two men on Alex hit another batter loading the bases up and then walked the next run in. The Mountaineers were up 8-7 and the Cowboys still had the bases loades.

Falling behind in the pitch count, Monaoh worked his way back into the count and with a full count he Neustifter to fly out to right field preserving the one run lead.

Oklahoma State had all the momentum and the Mountaineers needed some insurance before heading to the ninth inning.

First Baseman Marques Inman answered the call. Braden Zarbnisky got on base with a walk and Inman was waiting on his pitch, got it and drove it down the line for a two-run homerun. “I got the pitch I wanted, I just put a good swing on it.” said first baseman Marques Inman

Monoah went out in the ninth and made quick work of the Cowboys sealing the 10-7 win.

“Had some big hits. That first inning really set the tone for the game. Normally after you have an inning like that you kind of die for a little while offensively, but I didn’t think we did. Every time they scored we kind of came back with an answer.” said Mazey.