GRANVILLE — West Virginia’s first game as a nationally-ranked baseball team in nearly four years ended in great disappointment.
Hofstra, a team with a team ERA of 9.12 entering the game, looked anything but shaky on the mound and the Pride pulled off a 4-2 stunner Tuesday against the No. 24 Mountaineers in front of 1,474 fans inside Mon County Ballpark.
In pulling off the upset, Hofstra (7-12) came back after giving up two runs in the first inning and then survived WVU loading the bases in the ninth, but Pride pitcher Michael O’Hanlon struck out Dayne Leonard to end the game to pick up his third save of the season.
“I think when our first two guys of the game scored runs, our guys thought it was going to be easy,” WVU manager Randy Mazey said. “They didn’t have any idea that team over there came here to beat the heck out of us.”
WVU’s nine-game winning streak came to an end, a major reason it had entered the national rankings for the first time since June 2019.
During that nine-game streak, WVU (15-5) put enough runs on the scoreboard to make it resemble a football game, but not on Tuesday.
WVU was just 3 for 14 with runners on base and stranded 10 guys on the bases.
“You’ve got to give that team credit, they made good pitches when they had to,” Mazey said. “We made some mistakes on defense and threw the ball around a little bit. You can’t do that in close games, but it’s a good experience for us. We haven’t been in many close games. We haven’t played in a lot of games like that.”
Cade Henry (1-3) picked up the win. He settled down after the first inning and allowed five hits and two runs over five innings, while striking out four.
Three relief pitchers combined for four innings of one-hit ball after that.
That hit came in the ninth, when Landon Wallace walked with one out and Braden Barry hit a double with two outs.
With first base open, Hofstra elected to intentionally walk J.J. Wetherholt to load the bases.
Wetherholt, the leading hitter in the Big 12 with a .457 batting average, was intentionally walked twice in the game by Hofstra. Both times it ended with WVU being held scoreless.
“The guy is hitting over .400 and is the best hitter on the field most days,” Mazey said. “He’s definitely going to have to get used to that and the way teams pitch to him. They’re not giving him too much to hit.
“Kudos to them, they walk our best hitter and win the game. I wouldn’t pitch to J.J.”
Leonard followed Wetherholt and the senior ran the count full before coming up empty on a swinging third strike.
“The only way to protect (Wetherholt) is put your best hitters behind him, and that’s what we do,” Mazey said. “The guys behind him are going to be in that situation a bunch, because of J.J. Ilike our hitters behind J.J. They compete and I’m O.K. with those guys with the game on the line.”
Wetherholt did drive in Barry in the first with an RBI single and then scored on Leonard’s groundout, but that was the only offense WVU would manage.
Hofstra took the lead in the sixth inning when Kevin Bruggeman’s RBI single turned into a second run when Leonard’s throwing error was high trying to throw Bruggeman out at second.
Will Kennedy and Brian Morrell both scored on the play to give Hofstra the 4-2 advantage.
Barry’s two doubles extended his hitting streak to 10 games, and his batting average (.313) is up 159 points during the streak.
Aidan Major (1-2) took the loss, but pitched well. He gave up seven hits and two earned runs over six innings.
WVU and Hofstra will complete the two-game series at 3 p.m. Wednesday.
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