West Virginia Baseball Comes Back and Defeats Charlotte 5-4

Despite trailing 4-1, West Virginia (4-1) took game one of a three game series against Charlotte (2-2), winning 5-4, in the last inning off what has been officially ruled as a fielder’s choice bunt by Victor Scott II who brought home Austin Davis.

The scoring started off in the 1st inning when McQwire Holbrook hit home J.J. Wetherholt on a two-out double to left field. It continued Holbrook’s hot start to the season in which he is slashing .615/.615/.846 through five games thus far. However, it was his second RBI of the season.

Things were tied in the second inning when Blake Jackson singled home Jack Dragum. The score would remain tied until the 5th inning when Cam Fisher hit his third home run of the young season, this one a three-run home run to right-center field. 

Beau Lowery surrendered the home run in relief of starter Carlson Reed who ended his day with three earned runs, five strikeouts, six hits, two walks through four innings pitched. Lowery was replaced by Short in the fifth inning. Short got West Virginia out of the jam which left the team only down by three runs.

The comeback started in the 7th inning on a sac-fly by Evan Smith, who entered the game as a pinch hitter for Tevin Tucker. They tied the game in the 8th inning on a two-out, two-strike single by Dayne Leonard, who scored Ben Abernathy and Scott. Abernathy was brought in earlier to pinch run for Holbrook.

It was the top of the 9th where Scott laid down the game winning bunt. To set up the bunt, Scott singled to right field to get on base. He then stole second and third to put him in scoring position, both steals coming during the at-bat of Weatherford who was walked during the second steal.

In the bottom of the 9th, with a one-run lead, Jacob Watters, who entered in the 8th inning, got the first batter to ground out and struck out David McCabe. Fisher then singled to put the tying run on base, but Watters got pinch hitter JD Suarez to fly out to win the game.

Watters picked up the win and finished with two innings pitched, six strikeouts, no walks, no runs and only one hit surrendered. West Virginia used six total pitchers in the game, although two of them (Lowery and Kevin Dowdell) only registered one at-bat against each.

West Virginia had nine steals in the game with Abernathy counting for three of them. Davis and Braden Barry also had multi-steal games while Scott and Wetherholt added a steal of their own.

They had a total of nine hits in the game as well with Holbrook having three of them. He was the only West Virginia hitter with more than one hit.

West Virginia continues the series against Charlotte tomorrow at 3 p.m. before concluding the series at noon on Sunday.