The Mountaineers dropped their last game of the regular season 7-0 to Kansas. The Jayhawks completed the sweep in the final Big 12 series of the season. WVU finished the season with a 40-13 record and 19-9 in the Big 12. They got shut out for the second time in three games, the first and second time this season. WVU won the Big 12 and will get a bye in the first round of the Big 12 tournament. They will play the winner of Oklahoma State and Houston on Thursday at 11:30 am in Arlington, Texas. Read more: WVU shut out again and swept by Kansas.
Recap: WVU Shut Out Again and Swept by Kansas
Jack Kartsonas had another solid day on the mound for WVU. He started the game by pitching five scoreless innings before allowing a run in the sixth. This game was knotted up at 0-0 heading into the sixth inning. Brady Ballinger led off the inning with a double to right field. Kartsonas struck out the next two batters. He gave up a single to Dariel Osoria, which scored Ballinger from second.
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Kartsonas went back out in the seventh and struck out two before getting a flyout to end the inning. Cole Fehrman relieved Kartsonas to start the eighth inning, but got pulled after facing one batter. He hit Ballinger with a pitch and was replaced by Carson Estridge. Estridge struck out the first batter and got the next to ground into a fielder’s choice. He then gave up a double to Osoria and a home run to Derek Cerda to give Kansas a 4-0 lead.
Estridge was on the mound in the ninth and gave up a lead-off home run to Sawyer Smith. Chase Diggins and Ballinger hit back-to-back one-out singles before Tommy Barth knocked one run in with a double. Estridge followed that by hitting Ian Francis with a pitch before getting a strikeout for the second out of the inning. He was then replaced by JJ Glasscock, who walked the first batter he faced. During that at-bat, Ballinger scored on a wild pitch to give the Jayhawks a 7-0 lead. WVU got one baserunner in the bottom of the inning, but did nothing with it.
Key Takeaways
WVU’s offense was pitiful on Saturday. They tallied two hits, three walks, and Sam White got hit by a pitch. They had six baserunners in the game, which will not get the job done despite a great outing from Kartsonas. The Mountaineers did nothing all game and left six runners on base. Kyle West and Logan Sauve were the only players with a hit today, and they struck out 10 times as a team. The offense scored five runs in the series and tallied 19 hits through three games. The output was atrocious this weekend and is a bad sign heading into the Big 12 tournament.
Kartsonas had another great outing. He pitched seven innings, allowed one earned run, struck out eight batters, and walked two. The relievers for the Mountaineers struggled this series. They allowed eight combined runs between the seventh and ninth innings in the three games of this series. It did not matter much, because they did not get any run support. They must start scoring early runs to prove their worth as the first seed in the Big 12 tournament. They will get an extra day of rest with a bye in the first round, but must play better than they did down the stretch of the regular season.
