Mountaineers take another close call from Marshall

West Virginia’s Kyle Davis celebrates a three-run homer that helped the Mountaineers to a 9-8 win over Marshall on Wednesday night.

 

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Jackson Cramer knocked in four runs, Kyle Davis smacked a three-run homer and West Virginia held off a late charge to beat Marshall 9-8 on Wednesday night.

The Mountaineers (21-18) claimed their second one-run win over the Herd (21-17) this month. Both teams sit outside the RPI top 100 and likely must win their conference tournaments to reach the NCAA regional.

“I told the guys before the game started, every single time we’ve ever played Marshall, it’s been like this, it’s been a dogfight,” said West Virginia coach Randy Mazey. “They get super fired up for the game and they just happen to have the best team they’ve had since I’ve been here, which is good. That challenges the Mountaineers to play well.”

Davis’ three-run homer off Heston Van Fleet was part of a five-run seventh that staked West Virginia to a 9-3 lead, before Marshall countered with five of its own in the eighth. Tyler Ratliff’s grand slam off Jacob Brewer made it 9-8 and brought on closer Blake Smith for the five-out save, his fifth of the season.

Mazey tried to steal a run in the third by waving Jimmy Galusky home from second base on a fly ball to right-center. But Corey Bird’s throw from the gap was strong, and Tommy Lane relayed home 30 feet ahead of Galusky, who was erased in a rundown.

Ivan Vera’s sac-fly and Cramer’s two-run single staked the Mountaineers to a 2-0 lead in the first, and Cramer tacked on an RBI single in the fourth.

That 3-0 lead evaporated in the Marshall fifth when BJ Myers (5-3) surrendered Sam Finfer’s two-run homer to right-center and Bird grounded an RBI single through the right side. The Herd would have taken the lead if not for a diving stop by third baseman Vera that robbed Lane of a double and prevented two more runs.

Myers, returning after a first-inning knockout Sunday at Oklahoma, gave up three earned runs over four innings of relief.

Braden Zarbnisky pitched shutout ball for the first three innings.

Darius Hill walked against Herd reliever Patrick Murphy (4-3) in the sixth inning, took third on Vera’s double and scored on Cramer’s groundout to put WVU ahead 4-3.

“We played really well tonight,” Mazey said. “Offensively, defensively, base-running, energy. That’s what you have to do to win games. If we can do that every day, we have a chance to finish pretty strong.”

Watch coach Mazey and players react in postgame:





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