West Virginia Pounds Pitt at PNC

Pittsburgh - The West Virginia Mountaineers (26-11) fell behind 4-0 before racking up 12 hits and nine runs to handle the Pitt Panthers (16-19) in the first game of a three-game season series of the Backyard Brawl Wednesday night 9-4.

Pitt grabbed a 2-0 lead in the first on an RBI double from Noah Martinez and Justin Acal brought in Martinez with a single into left field.

Martinez got the Panthers going in the second inning with a leadoff double before Kyle Hess reached on an error at second and scored Martinez from second for another Pitt run, also ending the evening for Mountaineer freshman Carson Estridge.

WVU head coach Randy Mazey turned to freshman Gavin Van Kampan. He walked one before Caleb Sturtevant hit a ground ball over to third but beat the throw over to first for the RBI single as the Panthers grabbed a 4-0 advantage midway through the third. Mazey said they never panicked.

"Every team seems to take on the personality of the head coach and I don’t panic – I never panic," said Mazey. Between that and these older guys, that has a calming effect on everybody."

The Mountaineers answered in the bottom half of the inning, with consecutive singles from Logan Sauve, Sam White and a bunt single by Tevin Tucker to load the bases. Then, Landon Wallace delivered an infield RBI single before Dayne Leonard smacked a two RBI single back up the middle to get WVU within a run. Caleb McNeely was hit by the pitch to reload the bases and Braden Barry hit a deep ground ball over to short and beat the throw for the RBI single and Pitt starting pitcher Matthew Fernendez walked in a Mountaineer run to cap off a five-run third inning as West Virginia claimed a 5-4 lead.

Tevin Tucker hit a leadoff single in the bottom of the fourth, stole second and on a wild pitch while stealing third, he took home to add to the Mountaineer lead. Then, Caleb McNeely delivered an RBI single followed by a sacrifice RBI from Braden Barry to extend the Mountaineers lead, 8-4.

McNeely put the final touches on the game with a solo home run in the sixth as four Mountaineers combined for 6.2 scoreless inning to grab game one of the Backyard Brawl, 9-4."

"We probably use more pitchers than anybody in the history of college baseball, and we do that because I believe in all of them an opportunity to pitch in big moments and sometimes guys are out there to get one guy out," said Mazey. "Noah Short went out there to get two guys out tonight, Traxel went out to get three guys out. If everybody knows they have a role on the team, it makes the team play better."

West Virginia is back in action Friday night for the opener of a three-game series versus Big 12 Conference foe TCU with the first pitch set for 6:30 p.m. EST.

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