GRANVILLE, W.Va. — TCU’s Lance Davis brought WVU’s eight-game winning streak and hopes of an outright Big 12 regular season championship to an end with a three-hit shutout in a 4-0 victory in front of 3,759 fans at Kendrick Family Ballpark.
West Virginia’s loss, combined with Kansas’ 7-6 win at BYU late Friday, allowed the Jayhawks to lock up the conference regular season championship. WVU will be the No. 2 seed in next week’s Big 12 Conference Tournament.
Davis (5-3) pitched his second consecutive complete game victory. 75 of his 108 pitches went for strikes. He walked just one batter and struck out six.
“You’ve got to give a lot of credit to Lance Davis,” said WVU head coach Steve Sabins. “Obviously, he threw an incredible game. He has gone back-to-back complete games. He kept us off balance. We never got anything going offensively. We barreled a couple balls there in the middle innings but they were right at guys. And we never really gained any footing.
“Essentially, he throws 93 to 96 and there’s a lot of run on the fastball. So there’s arm-side run. But then he throws a 91 mile an hour cutter. You just have two firm pitches that are going opposite ways.”
Three of TCU’s (33-19, 17-12 Big 12) runs came via solo home runs. Preston Gamster and Kyuss Gargett homered in a span of three batters in the second inning. Noah Franco added a solo shot in the eighth. Cole Eaton scored on a wild pitch later in that frame to cap the scoring.
After allowing two runs in the second, WVU starter Maxx Yehl (7-2) settled in well. He pitched 6.2 innings and struck out nine batters while allowing just four hits.
“Maxx Yehl was competitive. He gave up a couple of home runs, which he hasn’t done basically all season. The guy competed and he gave us a chance to win.
“I thought after the fifth, that was going to be his night. He wanted the ball and then he got better in the sixth, and then he got better in the seventh. We just thought he got to a pitch count (116) that was comfortable.”
JT Huether struck out the lone batter he faced for the Mountaineers. Dawson Montesa, who had been a weekend starter prior to this series, was charged with two runs in 0.2 innings of work.
“He was throwing 98 miles an hour with the best slide he has thrown all season, by far. So we’re really excited about what that looked like and the possibility of that.”
Josh Surigao recorded the final four outs for West Virginia.
Matt Ineich, Paul Schoenfeld and Ben Lumsden all had singles for WVU’s three hits. The three hits were tied for their second-lowest total in a game this season.
“You just needed to put more pressure on the guy throughout the course of the game. He needed to throw more pitches. He needed to have some runners in scoring position, with less than two outs.”
West Virginia (36-13, 20-9 Big 12) will conclude their regular season Saturday in the rubber game of the three-game set. First pitch for the Senior Day contest has been moved up from 1 p.m. to noon in anticipation of inclement weather.
“I think we’ve got a top two pitcher in the league starting [Chansen Cole]. When he has the ball, it is always about him pitching and having the ball. I think we approach it the same way.”