WVU Baseball Cracks Top 10 in Major Polls After Kansas Sweep

Playing their best at the perfect time, WVU baseball moved up in the national rankings after their massive weekend sweep of Kansas.

As of Monday, May 11, West Virginia has cracked the top 10 at No. 7 for Perfect Game and No. 9 via D1Baseball and sits at No. 13 in Baseball America‘s poll.

WVU took down then No. 7 Kansas in Lawrence on Sunday, completing the sweep and puling within one game for first in the Big 12 standings.

The No. 15 Mountaineers (35-12, 19-8 Big 12) blew the game open with six runs in the sixth, opening a 9-2 lead on a bases-clearing double from center fielder Paul Schoenfeld and Sean Smith’s subsequent RBI single. The win closes the Mountaineers within one game of the top spot in the Big 12 with three games remaining in the regular season; they’ll need to win one more game than Kansas in the final weekend in order to secure a share of the regular season conference title.

West Virginia leapt ahead 1-0 with two outs in the second; Armani Guzman tripled, then came home on a Brodie Kresser single. The Jayhawks retaliated with a two-run homer in the bottom of the frame, but the Mountaineers responded with the critical next run as they did all series. Gavin Kelly reached on a fielding error the following inning, and Smith crushed a home run to left-center to make it 3-2.

Tyrus Hall narrowly missed a grand slam in the seventh, doubling off the wall to plate two runs, and a Smith RBI triple and a Kresser sacrifice fly pushed the lead to 13-2, triggering the run rule at the end of the eighth.

WVU Baseball will host TCU (31-18, 15-11 Big 12) at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 14 to begin their final regular season series.

Find more coverage of the WVU baseball program at WV Sports Now.

Note: The NCWBA poll was yet to release their poll at the time of this story being published.