No. 11 West Virginia Hosts a Tough Texas Tech Club

Morgantown, WV - The No. 11 West Virginia Mountaineers (37-12, 13-5) welcome the Texas Tech Red Raiders (34-16, 9-9) for the final regular season home series, with game one set for Friday afternoon at 4:00 EST, game two is Saturday at four o’clock and the series finale is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on Sunday.

UPDATE Saturday 5/13/23 3: 55 p.m EST: The first pitch for game two is set for 4:45 p.m. EST.

West Virginia has won 12 of its last 13 outings, including eight of the last nine conference games and sit atop the Big 12 Conference standings.

West Virginia sophomore, and All-American candidate J.J. Wetherholt is batting an NCAA-leading .470 while leading the conference in slugging percentage (.834), OPS (1.366), runs (62). hits (85), and stolen bases (34) to go with a team-high 14 home runs. The Mars, PA native is coming off a 3-4 performance in the Backyard Brawl, highlighted by a two-run home run, to help propel the Mountaineers for a 9-8 win a season series sweep of the Pitt Panthers.

West Virginia junior Braden Barry is on an 11-game hitting streak, batting .444 during the span with five RBIs, and freshman Logan Suave is 4-8 in the last two games with a home run and five RBIs.

Junior Ben Hampton (5-1, 3.95) will start for the Mountaineers in the series opener while Blaine Traxel (6-4, 3.32) is scheduled for game two and freshman Robby Porco (4-1, 7.60) will take the mound in the finale. As a pitching staff, the Mountaineers rank second in the league with a team ERA of 4.18.

Texas Tech will counter Mason Molina (4-2, (4.22), then Trendan Parish (3-1, 4.65) in the middle game and the Red Raiders series finale starter will be a game time decision.

The Red Raiders went 4-1 in their last five games, all of which were nonconference opponents after dropping a conference series at Kansas State.

Texas Tech leads the conference in nearly every hitting statistical category, and holds a wide margin in runs (482, +73), hits (584, +72), RBI (461, +90) and total bases (976, +87).

Texas Tech has three sluggers ranked in the top five in the Big 12 in batting average, with redshirt freshman Kevin Bazzell hitting a team-high .383 and Big 12 Baseball Player of the Year candidate Gavin Kash has blasted a conference-best 23 home runs has collected a league-leading 80 RBIs.

Texas Tech leads the all-time series 17-16.

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