West Virginia Defeats No. 3 Oregon State 2-0 Behind Strowd’s Strong Pitching

Final Score

West Virginia Mountaineers (6-5): 2

#3 Oregon State Beavers (10-1): 0

Kade Strowd was a wild man today.

He was wild in the sense of how impressive his performance over 6.1 innings was, completely neutralizing the Beavers offense. He was also wild in terms of his pitch location, as he issued an astounding 9 walks, but was able to - wildly - prevent those free baserunners from crossing home plate.

Between Strowd and a bullpen that slammed, locked and threw away the key, the #3 Beavers were shut out 2-0 to lose their first game of the season.

The Oregon State Beavers, who had scored 84 runs through the first 10 games (8.4 runs per game, if you’re poor at math, like me) were skunked today by a trio of Mountaineer pitchers. Over and over, OSU would get runners on, only to ground into a double play that would end the threat. Strowd induced 8 groundball outs today, an important statistic for a guy who is not necessarily known as a strikeout pitcher.

West Virginia’s offense, while not spectacular, did enough to secure the first victory of the season for Strowd.

In the top of the 2nd inning, left fielder Paul McIntosh and first baseman Kevin Brophy flexed their muscles and hit roundtrippers that pushed WVU to a series salvaging victory 2-0.

After Strowd exited the game after 6.1 innings, freshman reliever Beau Lowery, who Coach Randy Mazey has called upon a team-leading 5 times already this season, came in and induced a double play off the bat of Troy Claunch to end the inning.

Not wanting to take any chances with his team securing a win against one of the nation’s best programs, Coach Mazey went to the veteran closer, Sam Kessler for the final two innings. He promptly retired 6 Beavers and put his boys back on a plane to Almost Heaven.

The Mountaineers will return to a snow covered Morgantown sometime early Monday morning, and will thankfully get a couple day reprieve from baseball as they won’t be back in action until Friday, when they take on the Kent State Golden Flashes (4-7).

Check back in on Thursday for a series preview, and as always, let’s go, Mountaineers!