MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The last time Maxx Yehl had pitched for West Virginia, he was pulled in the third inning of an April 18 matchup against Houston with his velocity noticeably down.
Twelve days without game action allowed for Yehl to look much more the part of the pitcher that was among the best in all of college baseball over the season’s first two months when he made his return Friday against Kansas State and Kendrick Family Ballpark.
The left-handed Yehl threw five scoreless innings with eight strikeouts, surrendering three hits, walking a pair and working around two hit batsmen to lead the 18th-ranked Mountaineers to a 7-0 victory against the Wildcats in the first of a three-game set.
“The velocity was higher. The breaking ball was sharper. The stuff was actually better,” WVU coach Steve Sabins said. “He was up to 95 [miles per hour] in the first inning, and I don’t know if he’s ever been there in his career. This may have been the best stuff he’s had in his career.”
Yehl retired the Wildcats (26-20, 9-13) in order to start his outing, and when he returned to the rubber for the second inning, WVU (29-12, 14-8) had taken a 1-0 lead courtesy of Paul Schoenfeld’s double to the gap in left-center field that brought home Gavin Kelly after he’d drawn a walk in the previous plate appearance.
Yehl worked around two singles in the second as well as a one-out walk to Nick English in the third, an inning that ended with English thrown out at the plate by a wide margin when Kelly tracked down a ball that got away and threw to Yehl, who had plenty of time to apply the tag.
Consecutive singles from Matt Ineich and Kelly to start the home half of the third helped lead to Sean Smith’s sacrifice fly and a 2-0 lead for the home team.
KSU had two on with one out in the fourth, but Yehl retired Grant Gallagher on a fly ball to right and then Cadyn Karl on a ground ball to third to end the inning with runners at the corners for the Wildcats.
“Early on, I was feeling really good playing catch and had a lot of confidence going into the game,” Yehl said. “Being able to throw strikes and do what I needed to do gave me all the confidence I needed.”
K-State standout Dee Kennedy was hit by a Yehl offering with two outs in the fifth, putting the tying run on base for Shintaro Inoue.
Yehl immediately got ahead of Inoue 0-2 and then induced a ground ball to second for the final out of his 87-pitch outing that featured 54 strikes.
“You can’t replace the best pitcher in the Big 12,” Sabins said. “There’s not just a next man up there.”
WVU loaded the bases with one out in the home half of the fifth, before Matthew Graveline hit a well-struck shot to center that Karl tracked down to limit the Mountaineers to a sacrifice fly instead of what would’ve been almost certainly been a bases clearing triple at the least.
With the 3-0 advantage to start the sixth, Sabins went to Ian Korn, who had been utilized exclusively in relief before starting last weekend at Cincinnati in place of Yehl.
“I didn’t give him a reason why. He’s not into any of that stuff,” Sabins said. “He’s not into roles. He’s into pitching and team.”
Korn maintained his steady pitching and retired the first six batters he faced, before the Mountaineers put to rest any thought of a K-State rally with a four-run seventh that featured a two-run single from Brodie Kresser, Armani Guzman stealing home on a double steal that saw Kresser move to second and the Wildcats throw down and a Brock Wills single to left that brought Kresser home.
“We probably gave away like two at bats,” Sabins said. “We had five strikeouts against multiple good pitchers and really consistent quality at bats.”
Korn worked around a leadoff walk in the eighth and Ty Smolinski’s leadoff double in the ninth to finish off the Mountaineers’ fifth shutout this season and second within Big 12 Conference play.
“A lot of questions went through my mind as I was taken out of the [Houston] game, but I know the people I work with and I’m grateful to have those people to put me in the best position I can to stay healthy,” said Yehl, who missed the 2025 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. “I was frustrated when it happened, but had time to get better.”
The cool conditions, which included rain throughout pregame warmups and at the start of it, did nothing to slow down Yehl.
“I always tell myself I throw harder in the cold being from New York,” Yehl said. “This is a summer’s day in New York. If I trick my mind in to believing that, why not, right?”
The double from Smoliski was the last of four KSU hits and the only one that went for extra bases.
Schoenfeld accounted for three of WVU’s 11 hits and a double that was the lone extra-base hit.
Kresser and Wills added two hits apiece.
“The offense was really good,” Sabins said. “We’ve been on a string where we’ve hit a lot of balls really hard for quite a while, and today was no different, but we actually had some of the balls we didn’t hit hard fall. The universe kind of evened out today and that’s just baseball.”
Korn allowed one hit, walked one and struck out two over an efficient 60-pitch outing.
Tazwell Butler gave KSU a quality performance in his first start this season, which lasted 5.2 innings. He allowed three runs on eight hits and struck out three while issuing two walks.
The Wildcats have lost five straight.