West Virginia Baseball Loses Big to Ohio State

The West Virginia baseball team (8-5) fell to Ohio State (5-7) in a one-sided 10-4 game at home in the first game of a double header on Friday and a three-game series this weekend.

Carlson Reed got the start for West Virginia, but he did not make it out of the third-inning. The scoring started off in the second for Ohio State, who had a three-run inning, but two of the runs were unearned. Mitchell Oukley scored on a fielder’s choice while Hank Thomas scored from second on a passed ball.

Thomas singled home Oukley in the third-inning which ended the night for Reed. He was replaced by Short, who was able to get out of the third-inning and pitch a scoreless fourth-inning, but gave up two earned runs in the fifth-inning where Ohio State extended their lead to 6-1.

Zach Bravo took over for Noah Short, but Ohio State also scored three-runs on him to put the game out of reach. This was despite a three-run sixth-inning by West Virginia that put the team within three-runs. Ultimately, West Virginia was held scoreless after that and fell 10-4.

The West Virginia offense struck out 13 times in the game and left seven hitters on base. The team was constantly batting from behind, with only one lead-off hitter registering a hit in the game’s nine innings. Overall they hit 6-32 (.188) on the day.

Their run prevention didn’t fare any better with their pitchers only getting six strikeouts. Their defense also had two costly errors that both resulted in runs scored. Ohio State hit 14-41 (.341) against West Virginia. 

Reed (0-1) picked up his first loss of the season while Isiah Coupet (2-1) picked up his second win. Ethan Hammerberg pitched the last 3.1 scoreless innings for Ohio State, which earned him the save.

After starting the season with a strong 7-2 record, West Virginia has now lost three of their last four games and are 1-3 against teams from the B1G conference this year. They previously went 1-2 against B1G teams at US Bank Stadium in Minnesota with the lone win coming against Minnesota, 5-4.

West Virginia will look to right thing against Ohio State in the last two games of the series before traveling to Durham, North Carolina on Tuesday to take on the Duke Blue Devils (8-5).