MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Growing up in Pennsylvania didn’t immunize West Virginia pitcher Isaiah Kearns to cold weather. So when the wind chill dropped into the low-40s on Sunday afternoon, he kept retreating into the dugout bathroom.
“The heater’s on in there,” said coach Randy Mazey after Kearns’ quality start sparked the Mountaineers to a series-clinching 8-3 win over No. 19 Texas. “He doesn’t like it cold and he’ll be the first to tell you. He sat in the bathroom between innings on a bucket, so he didn’t see us hit at all today.”
In his warm hideaway, Kearns missed a three-run outburst in the fourth when freshmen Tyler Doanes and Connor Hamilton delivered RBI singles. Doanes added a bases-loaded triple in the eighth as West Virginia (22-19, 6-9) won its second consecutive Big 12 series and improved to 7-2 against the Longhorns in Morgantown.
“Kids just get excited to play against Texas, and I do, too,” Mazey said. “I wake up in the morning and say today there’s an opportunity to beat one of the best programs in the history of college baseball.”
After winning Friday’s opener, Texas (30-17, 12-6) dropped the final two games of the series and slipped 2 1/2 games back of league leader Oklahoma State. The Longhorns’ top hitter Kody Clemens went hitless in four at-bats and finished the weekend 1-for-12 with six strikeouts, dropping his average from .349 to .331.
West Virginia wrapped up April with a 12-5 record, including 15 games at Mon County Ballpark.
“We’re playing pretty good right now,” Mazey said. “We’ve just got to keep going.”
Keeping Texas off-balanced with his changeup, Kearns (3-1) went 6 1/3 innings, his longest start of the season, giving up four hits and three runs, two of them earned. He fanned five and walked three.
He left two runners aboard in the seventh for Tristen Hudson, who yielded an RBI single to Duke Ellis before striking out Clemens and inducing a groundout to preserve West Virginia’s 4-3 lead.
The Mountaineers found some cushion in the eighth when singles by Darius Hill and Marques Inman and Kyle Gray’s walk loaded the bases. Though Doanes fell behind in the count against Texas right-hander Matteo Bocci, he fouled off a series of pitches before lining a 1-2 offering to the wall in left-center for his team-leading fourth triple this season.
“I just tried to keep fighting,” Doanes said. “I was able to see all of his pitches, and the last pitch he threw me a hanging slider and I got my barrel to it.”
Doanes’ speed factored again moments later when he raced home on Andrew Zitel’s bunt and beat the glove-handed flip from Bocci.
Alex Manoah, on the heels of Saturday’s dramatic save, struck out two hitters in a scoreless ninth.
Texas starter Blair Henley (5-6) gave up four runs on eight hits over six innings.
Marques Inman had two doubles in a 3-for-4 day for WVU and raised his average to .361. Braden Zarbnisky had two hits and two stolen bases out of the leadoff spot.
Gray extended his career-long hitting streak to 18 games and Hill’s reached 17.
With three weeks and 12 games left in the regular season, West Virginia’s RPI of 34 puts it in contention for an NCAA bid. Bettering the won-loss record remains a necessity, however, beginning with Tuesday’s home matchup against Maryland (19-24).