ARLINGTON, Texas — The West Virginia University baseball team could never find its rhythm in a Big 12 Tournament opening loss to defending tournament champion TCU on Tuesday afternoon.
“I don’t know how many pitches we swung at outside of the strike zone, but it was significant,” WVU head baseball coach Randy Mazey said. “They made us swing at a lot of pitches that weren’t strikes and take a lot of pitches that were strikes.”
The fourth-seeded Mountaineers (33-18) finished with just three hits against the Horned Frogs (32-19), whom they took two of three games against last weekend in Fort Worth.
WVU will play sixth-seeded Kansas State (31-23) in an elimination game at 10 a.m. today. The Wildcats lost to archrival Kansas in its tournament opener on Tuesday.
The Mountaineers took two of three games from the Wildcats, May 9-11, in Morgantown. That doesn’t mean a whole lot now as WVU looks to win its first Big 12 Tournament game at Globe Life Field. They dropped to 0-5 at the home of the Texas Rangers with Tuesday’s loss.
Mazey had no comment on WVU’s probable pitchers but projected that Kansas State will start southpaw Owen Boerema (5-3), a graduate student.
“We’ll probably get one of Kansas State’s best arms,” Mazey said. “We’ll have our work cut out for us. If we don’t have a better offense or approach on Wednesday, we’re going to be sitting at the press conference tomorrow (as the first team eliminated).”
Mazey likes the fact that the Big 12 Tournament expanded to 10 teams, but he could do without the short week, which gave the Mountaineers just three days rest from its regular season finale on Saturday to Tuesday’s tournament opener.
Junior Infielder Brody Green, who struck out for the Horned Frogs’ in last Saturday’s 6-5 Mountaineers win, had an exceptional game on Tuesday. He scored the first run of the game, in the third inning, on a fielder’s choice and then hit a solo home run for insurance in the top of the ninth.
TCU was ahead 3-0 until sophomore catcher Logan Sauve belted a two-run home run to left field in the bottom of the fifth, cutting the lead to 3-2. Sauve had two of the Mountaineers’ three hits – with a home run and a double. Senior third baseman Reed Chumley had the other hit.
The Horned Frogs responded in the top of the sixth when freshman infielder Ryder Robinson hit an RBI single to score senior Luke Boyers for a 4-2 advantage.
Sauve advanced to third base in the bottom of the eighth inning, but sophomore outfielder Sam White struck out to end the inning.
WVU sophomore pitcher Carson Estridge (1-2) took the loss, allowing two runs on four hits in 3 2/3 innings.
TCU’s pitching duo of redshirt sophomore Caedmon Parker and sophomore Braeden Sloan combined for 13 strikeouts against the Mountaineers.
WVU dropped to 1-5 all-time vs. the Horned Frogs in the Big 12 Tournament, but the Mountaineers have still won seven of their last 10 games against TCU.
BY MICHAEL SUDHALTER/For The Dominion Post
