MORGANTOWN — The last time the Morgantown baseball team stepped off Dale Miller Field at Mylan Park, they had just absorbed a disappointing 10-4 loss to rival University in the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference semifinals. Tuesday, they stepped back onto that same home field against Buckhannon-Upshur, ready to rinse out the bitterness of last week.
Good teams find a way to bounce back from tough losses, and while it wasn’t always pretty, the win sure tasted sweet, as the Mohigans, bolstered by the right arm and big bat of Ryan Fluharty, blanked BU, 7-0.
MHS (16-5) jumped out in front 1-0 in the first inning on Caleb Cottle’s sacrifice fly, then added a pair in the second when right-handed starter Fluharty helped himself in a big way with a two-run home run to left.
On the mound, the Morgantown senior consistently pounded the strike zone with his fastball and breaking stuff, especially with men in scoring position, enabling him to strand all eight Buccaneers baserunners through the first five innings. However, BU starter Wyatt Mason settled down after a rough start to keep the Mohigans from extending their 3-0 lead until the fifth.
A one-out bad-hop single by Drew Bailey got things started, then Cottle’s sacrifice bunt was thrown away for a critical run-scoring error. Caleb Nutter drilled an opposite-field book-rule double to left to plate Cottle, then Nate Wolfe stroked a two-out RBI single to double the Mohigans’ lead.
In the top of the sixth, Fluharty issued his first base on balls, followed by a soft single, but the senior ace simply went to work on the bottom third of the BU (11-10) batting order and shut the rally down with three straight punch outs. Bailey’s two-out double in the sixth drove in Fluharty with Morgantown’s seventh run in the sixth, then sidewinding righty Caleb Neer put the Bucs away in the final inning to preserve the shutout.
After the game, Fluharty smiled as he described his solid night on the mound and at the plate.
“I just missed a curve in the first inning,” he grinned, recalling his long fly to left, “but it was a fastball that I was able to turn on and hit pretty well in the second. I wasn’t trying to guess – I always set for the fastball, then adjust off that, and I just put a good swing on it.
“I got my fastball over all night, and the slider worked well, then the curve was a big strikeout pitch for me later in the game,” he continued while recounting his five-hit, eight-strikeout, one-walk performance. “They didn’t really barrel me up all night, so I knew that if I kept throwing strikes, the guys would make plays behind me.”
Assistant coach Brandon Wisman knew this one wasn’t a thing of beauty despite the final score, but was nevertheless pleased with both the effort and the result.
“I’d call it hard-fought,” he said. “We gave them a few extra at-bats, and forced Ryan to throw a few more pitches than he might’ve needed to, but we ended up making the plays we needed to make later in the game. And we didn’t add on in the middle innings like we want to, but we found ways to put together some good at-bats and give Ryan some breathing room. In the end, we put the past in the past, played the game in the moment, and grinded out a win, which is just what we needed to do.”
The Mohigans host Robert C. Byrd today at 5:30 p.m. at Mylan Park.
BY MARK SCHRAF
Buckhannon-Upshur 000 000 0 – 7
Morgantown 120 031 X – 0
BUCKHANNON-UPSHUR (11-10) — Zach Calef-Boring 2b 4 0 0 0 Payton Bennett lf 3 0 1 0 Landon Marple cf-p 4 0 1 0 Ian Donner c 3 0 0 0 Clint Crites 3b 2 0 1 0 Ryan Snyder 1b 3 0 2 0 Eli Bryant rf 3 0 0 0 Wyatt Mason p-cf 3 0 0 0 Drahden Rice ss 3 0 0 0 Totals 28 0 5 0.
MORGANTOWN (15-6) — Ryan Fluharty p 3 2 1 2 Ty Galusky c 2 1 1 0 Aaron Jamison cf 3 0 0 0 Drew Bailey lf 3 1 2 1 Caleb Cottle 3b 2 1 0 1 Caleb Nutter rf 3 1 1 1 Dylan Travinski ss 3 0 0 0 Nate Wolfe 1b 3 1 2 1 Eli Boggs 2b 3 0 1 0 Totals 25 7 8 6.
E- BUHS 2 MHS 4. LOB – BUHS 11 MHS 7. 2B – MHS 2 (Nutter, Bailey). HR – MHS 1 (Fluharty). SH – MHS 2 (Cottle, Galusky). SF – MHS 1 (Cottle). HBP – MHS 1 (Jamison by Mason), BUHS 1 (Walters by Neer). Balk – BUHS 1 (Mason)
BUHS – Mason (L) 5 ip 6 r 5 er 7 h 2 bb 4 so, Marple 1 ip 1 r 1 er 1 h 1 bb 1 so.
MHS – Fluharty (W) 6 ip 0 r 0 er 5 h 1 bb 8 so, Neer 1 ip 0 r 0 er 0 h 0 bb 1 so.
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