GRANVILLE, W.Va. — West Virginia was held to a season-low hit total and they could not erase a sizable deficit in a 7-4 series-opening loss to Columbia. The Mountaineers fell behind 6-0 in the fifth inning and saw their comeback bid fizzle out in the late innings.
“Guys played tough. A little bit of press today, I think. I think they came out wanting to play. They were excited to play,” said WVU head coach Steve Sabins. “I thought when we got down early, maybe there was a little bit of press, offensively.”
In his fourth start of the season, WVU pitcher Dawson Montesa allowed a season-high five runs in four innings of work. Columbia (2-5) sent nine batters to the plate in a five-run second inning.
“His fastball today had cut on it. So the velocity was good — 93-96 like it traditionally is. But it was really cutting on him. So that affected his curveball and his splitter. His cutter was different today. Everything was kind of taking off glove side. So he just didn’t have feel.”
Montesa’s counterpart, Alex Sotiropoulos pitched into the sixth inning, allowing three runs [one earned] and three hits.
“Good pitcher, really good. He’s a sophomore and a big-bodied dude at 94-96 [mph]. He’s got plus stuff. He was out of the zone a little bit. But he always kind of got back in the zone.”
WVU’s bullpen kept the game in range by allowing two runs in five innings. Ian Korn allowed one run in three innings.
“He was crisp. It was his longest outing. It was his least amount of traffic. He had three strikeouts in three innings. I thought he took a big step forward today.”
Reese Bassinger allowed an insurance run in the ninth in a two-inning stint.
West Virginia (8-3) chipped away at their six-run deficit with two runs in the fifth and runs in the sixth and seventh innings. Their runs came on a groundout, a throwing error, a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly. The top four hitters in WVU’s lineup combined to go 2-for-15.
“We had one hit [each] between [Gavin] Kelly and [Matt] Ineich today. That’s unusual for us. Those guys have really been fire starters for our offense. We just didn’t quite get in rhythm. We ended up having five hits and four walks. So there was just not a ton of traffic and not a ton of pressure. I thought we made it fairly comfortable for them.”
West Virginia had three runners erased on the base paths, one on an attempted steal of home and another on a double steal.
“Probably our biggest mistake of the game was getting thrown out at second with the trail runner and then being back-picked on a dirt ball read. In those situations, you can’t afford an out, because the outs are precious, especially when you are trailing at that point. Baserunning was probably the worst part of our game today that we need to clean up and do better at.”
Jimmy Chadwell and Cole Fellows each had two hits for Columbia, as the Lions outhit WVU 10-5. Payton Soske pitched a scoreless ninth inning to earn the save.
Game two of the series is set for noon Saturday and the series finale will be at 12:30 Sunday.