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Following a good week for West Virginia Baseball, beating rival Virginia Tech Hokies 7-2 in the mid-week matchup and then securing their sixth Big 12 series win with a 7-4 come-from-behind Sunday win against Kansas State Wildcats.
The Mountaineers fell last week after they nearly no-hit Marshall but lost a much-needed series against TCU Horned Frogs. This week, several teams ahead of the Mountaineers suffered bad weeks including: Louisville Cardinals who went 1-3 and fell from 6 to 9, Baylor Bears who did not play and moved up two spots from 14 to 12, Ole Miss Rebels who were swept and fell from 11 to 15, LSU Tigers who went 1-3 and fell from 15 to 19 and North Carolina Tar Heels lost their series against Pitt Panthers and fell from 13 to 20.
The Mountaineers move up one spot from 22 to 21 in the D1Baseball.com rankings.
Baseball America moves the Mountaineers up two from 21 to 19.
West Virginia finished off Big 12 play with a hard-fought series win at Kansas State. Righthander Alek Manoah returned to form Friday, throwing eight scoreless innings, giving up three hits and one walk with 13 strikeouts. In conference play this season, Manoah went 4-2 with a 1.75 ERA and a 76-to-13 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 61.2 innings. The Mountaineers capped the weekend with a come-from-behind win Sunday. Trailing 4-3 after seven innings of play, WVU scored four runs in the top of the eighth on an Ivan Gonzalez RBI single, sacrifice flies from T.J. Lake and Tyler Doanes, and an RBI single off the bat of Brandon White. Doanes, the second baseman, went 3-for-4 out of the top spot in the lineup, while White, in center field, was 3-for-4 right behind him.
The Mountaineers will travel to PNC Park to take on the Pitt Panthers this week in their fifth straight away game before they come home for a Thursday-Saturday series against George Washington.
West Virginia’s series loss to TCU likely ended the Mountaineer’s hopes of hosting a regional but winning the last four games of the regular season plus a deep run in the Big 12 Tournament could possibly rekindle those hopes. It should be noted that LSU, North Carolina and Ole Miss were predicted with regionals and their weekend losses could put their hosting chances in jeopardy.