PREVIEW: West Virginia Opens the Big 12 Championship vs. Kansas

As an eight seed, the West Virginia Mountaineers kick off the Big 12 Conference Baseball Championship versus the ninth-seeded Kansas Jayhawks in the play-in game at Bricktown City Ballpark, at Oklahoma City Tuesday night with the first pitch set for 7:00 pm EST on ESPN+. The winner will enter a double-elimination format and face the Big 12 regular season champions, Texas Longhorns.

West Virginia opened conference play against Kansas the last weekend of March. Although the Mountaineers lost game two 9-2 in the first game of a doubleheader, they took the series 2-1 while outscoring the Jayhawks 28-11. Austin Davis is hitting a team-leading .317 and went 6-10 with two doubles and four RBI’s, along with four runs in the series. Paul McIntosh (4-10) smacked two runs and a double, Victor Scott had five RBI’s, and Tyler Doanes was 4-9 with three doubles and two RBI’s and had four runs.

The Mountaineers turn to freshman Carlson Reed (4-4, 5.64 ERA) in game one. In his last three outings, he struck out 15 in 13.2 innings for an ERA of 2.05. Kansas is countering with redshirt junior right-hander Cole Larsen (5-5), who leads the team with a 3.55 ERA.

Three Jayhawks are batting .300 or better; Skylar Messinger (.327) also leads the team with 39 RBI’s, Tavian Josenberger (.309), and Maui Ahuna (.300). Additionally, James Costentino hit a team-leading six home runs.

The Mountaineers went into the last weekend of the regular season on a five-game winning streak before extending it to six after taking game one against the second-ranked Texas Longhorns, 5-4. However, Texas pounded West Virginia the final two games by a combined score of 26-5. Kansas won five of six games, including a series win over in-state rival Kansas State and game one over Texas Tech, before dropping the last two games by a combined score of 18-4 to the Red Raiders.

West Virginia is 15-11 all-time against Kansas, including 2-1 at the Big 12 Championship, with the last meeting coming on May 22, 2019, where the Mountaineers knocked off the Jayhawks, 12-8.

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