West Virginia entered Sunday’s elimination game against Kentucky with what it felt was a luxury having almost all of its bullpen available.
Unfortunately for the Mountaineers, they were forced to call on that bullpen early and often, while the host Wildcats got six dominant innings from starting pitcher Austin Strickland in a 10-0 victory as part of the Lexington Regional at Kentucky Proud Park.
The result ends the Mountaineers’ season at 40-20 and with losses in seven of their last eight contests.
UK (38-19) moves on to face Indiana later Sunday, with the Wildcats needing a victory to then force a winner-take-all matchup between the two Monday.
Serving as the visiting team, West Virginia made some of its best contact against Strickland in the first inning, but still started with consecutive line drive outs.
When the Wildcats got their first crack against WVU starting pitcher Grant Siegel, they took full advantage of leadoff batter Jackson Gray being hit by a pitch as he scored on Jase Felker’s double in the next at bat.
Felker scored the Wildcats’ second run on a groundout, forcing WVU to again from play behind early — a theme over the season’s last few weeks.
After Siegel surrendered a run-scoring double to Nolan McCarthy and followed by hitting Grant Smith with a pitch, the Mountaineers turned to Maxx Yehl — their second of seven pitchers utilized.
Thanks to an out on the bases, Yehl kept UK from scoring before giving way to Carlson Reed with WVU trailing 3-0 with two outs in the third.
Strickland continued to have his way with West Virginia and McCarthy delivered a big blow by belting a two-run home run to right-centerfield that left the Mountaineers trailing 5-0 in the fourth.
UK added single runs in the fifth and seventh frames on separate singles from Hunter Gilliam and Reuben Church, before Devin Burkes punctuated the victory with a bases-clearing double in the eighth.
JJ Wetherholt led West Virginia with three hits to finish the season with a .454 batting average.
Wetherholt finished the season with 101 hits, becoming the second player in program history to reach the 100-hit mark in a season.
It marked the first time the Mountaineers have been shutout this season, though they surpassed six runs only once — in Saturday’s 13-5 victory over Ball State — over the last nine games.
Siegel suffered the loss after allowing three runs in 1 1/3 innings.
Strickland limited WVU to four hits in six innings. He struck out six and issued one base-on-balls.
Magdiel Cotto threw two scoreless frames with three strikeouts before giving way to James McCoy, who closed things out with a scoreless ninth.
Burkes and McCarthy each drove in three runs to key Kentucky’s 10-hit attack.