The Mountaineer Baseball Season ends in a Walk-off.

The West Virginia Mountaineer baseball season ended in a devastating 11-10 loss Sunday afternoon to the Texas A&M Aggies. It was fitting that the game would have a two-hour weather delay and a walk-off win at Monongalia County Ballpark, but it was unusual for the old Gold and Blue to be the victims.

The Mountaineers were the visiting team, even though it was their homefield, the NCAA doesn’t allow the host team to automatically be the home team. They switch after the first round and then it’s decided by whether or not the team that was the home team the least becomes the home team. If it’s a tie, they flip a coin. They flipped a coin and WVU lost. Yes, its profoundly the dumbest rule I ever heard of and it makes no sense. I digress.

West Virginia head coach Randy Mazey flipped the ball to freshman Ryan Bergert. His last appearance came in the semifinal of the Big 12 Tournament where he tossed a career high five innings shutout and retired four.

Bergert put himself in a jam to begin the game, walking Bryce Blaum and Cam Blake, then they executed a double steal to get into scoring position. Bergert would bear down and ended the inning with two strikeouts that erupted the crowd onto their feet.

The momentum carried over to the batter’s box as Ivan Gonzalez started the top of the second with a high-hard chopper to short and hustled down the first base line for a single.

Kevin Brophy came into the game 1-8 during the Regional, but came up big and went opposite field, delivering a two-run homerun to give the Mountaineers a 2-0 lead.

In the top of the fourth, TJ Lake ripped a line-drive into left field and Cam Blake charged the ball, trying to catch it off a quick one-hop, but the ball took of a funny bounce and got by him, rolling to the wall as Lake made his way to third.

Tevin Tucker followed it up with an RBI double into left-center before Austin Davis laid down a bunt and pitcher Christian Roa overthrew first base as Tevin Tucker raced home to put the Mountaineers up 4-0.

Texas A&M head coach Rob Childress called upon his bullpen for Chris Weber. He picked off Davis and struck out Doanes to end the inning.

After Mikey Hoehner singled in the bottom of the inning, the game was delayed for nearly two hours due to storms coming through the area.

Once play resumed, Mazey brought out freshman Zach Ottinger. He picked up where Bergert left off in the Big 12 semifinal and pitched four hitless innings.

Ottinger again answered the call, going 1-2-3 to close out the fourth.

West Virginia bats stayed hot in the fifth. Darius Hill began the inning with an extremely high chopper to second base and beat the throw to first before Paul McIntosh hit a bomb that cleared the highest part of the wall in left field, extending their lead 6-0.

Ivan Gonzalez followed it up with a drive a double into right center, then Kevin Brophy fired a single into rightfield and that ended Weber’s day.

Bryce Miller ended the inning with help from his centerfielder as TJ Lake flared one into center and Gonzalez tagged up third, but Zach DeLoach gunned him down at the plate.

A couple of fielding errors from the Mountaineers in the bottom of the fifth, gave Texas A&M their first run of the game, but Ottinger limited the damage.

Austin Davis drew a walk in the sixth, proceeded to steal second and took third on the overthrow to second. Then Tyler Doanes singled back up the middle for an RBI to build the lead back to six.

In the seventh, Gonzalez doubled off the right field wall and Kevin Brophy drew a walk before a wild pitch put them into scoring position. Then, TJ Lake singled in for a pair of RBI’s and the Mountaineers had seemingly put the game away.

The Aggies got to Ottinger in the bottom of the inning and Ty Coleman and Braden Shewmake started it off with back to back singles. Then with one out, Cam Blake singled into right field to clear the bases.

Ottinger walked Hoehner. Freshman Hunter Watson came into pinch hit and he hit a ground ball over to first. It was fielded cleanly by Marquise Inman and turned to make the throw over to second for the double play, the throw was in the dirt and it loaded the bases.

Logan Foster got A&M within two going opposite field for a grand slam.

After a double from Hunter Coleman, Mazey brought in his closer Sam Kessler and got out of the inning without any damage.

“He wasn’t pitching bad he was the victim of defensive miscues.” Said Mazey. “I though he did fine”.

The Mountaineers added another run in the eighth after Marques Inman led-off with a double and then with two outs, Kevin Brophy singled back up the middle for a little insurance.

West Virginia was leading 10-7 heading into the bottom of the ninth inning and with Kessler in control on the mound, it looked like WVU was about to advance to play Duke in the evening game. However, Texas A&M wasn’t done.

Foster hit a lead-off hanging shallow ball into centerfield for a double for the Aggies.

Kessler got Hunter Coleman to fly out to right field but followed it up walking pinch hitter Aaron Walters on a full count.

Kessler retired Ty Coleman, however, walked Shewmake to load the bases.

Bryce Blaum walked to the plate and worked his way to a full count. Then on the 3-2 pitch, he drilled the ball over the high part of the wall for a walk-off grand slam that advanced the Aggies and ended the season for the Mountaineers on their own homefield.

“All I can do is treat this like a win.” Said an emotional Randy Mazey after the game. “I mean, big picture I think this is a win. You can’t let one game or one pitch or one inning overshadow what our program has accomplished and how far we’ve come and what we’ve done. So, I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to let one inning of baseball or one game dictate my feeling about West Virginia baseball. I couldn’t be prouder of everybody in that locker room. Everybody on that team had a lot to do with us being here. This may go down as the greatest team that West Virginia baseball has put together. So, how could you let one pitch or one at bat or one inning overshadow what this group of kids has accomplished. I’m not going to do that. So, I’m going to walk out of here like we had a major victory, cause I think we did.”