WVU Baseball Blanked in Series Opener; Still Clinches Big 12

WVU Baseball dropped their home series opener against the Kansas Jayhawks on Thursday, May 15, falling 3-0 as their bats failed to put up any run support for starting pitcher Griffin Kirn. West Virginia still ended up clinching the regular season Big 12 title tonight in spite of the loss due to Arizona’s loss to Oklahoma State.

Kirn lasted eight innings on a Herculean 127 pitches (83 strikes), allowing two runs and striking out 10 batters. While West Virginia (40-11, 19-7 Big 12) logged six hits, they didn’t manage any extra bases. Their best scoring attempts came in the fourth and fifth innings.

First, Kyle West led off with a single, taking second on a passed ball before advancing to third via groundout. A Sam White strikeout prevented the possibility of a sacrifice, however, and Jace Rinehart grounded out to end the frame. Gavin Kelly and Grant Hussey singled to put two aboard with one out in the fifth; a Brodie Kresser sacrifice moved Kelly over to third, but again, with no more outs to work with, they couldn’t scrape a run across.

Kansas, meanwhile, got to Kirn in the first inning, plating a leadoff double with a pair of productive outs. The veteran lefty allowed at least one baserunner in each of his eight innings but managed to work through traffic until giving up a solo homer in the eighth.

Jayhawks’ reliever Alex Breckheimer contributed two perfect innings to notch the save, piggybacking off seven scoreless from Dominic Voegele. Mountaineers’ batters struck out ten times in all.

WVU Baseball will continue their series with the Jayhawks at 5p.m. on Friday, May 16, the start time moved up in order to avoid inclement weather scheduled to sweep the region.