Big Weekend

Big Weekend
By John Antonik for MSNsportsNET.com





MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University baseball season is coming down to two weekends. The Mountaineers at 11-10 are fighting with South Florida, Villanova, Rutgers and Connecticut for the final three spots in the Big East playoffs.

South Florida is 10-11 with games remaining against St. John’s and Notre Dame. Villanova (9-12) plays a weekend series against Rutgers before finishing up with St. John’s. Rutgers (9-12) wraps up the year against Louisville while Connecticut (8-16) has a conference series remaining against Pitt.

West Virginia owns the tiebreakers against South Florida and Connecticut.

This weekend West Virginia has a critical three-game series with Louisville beginning with Saturday’s doubleheader set to get underway at 3 pm. The first game of the twinbill will be carried nationally on XM Radio channel 203.

“We’re not in the tournament yet,” said West Virginia coach Greg Van Zant. “If we win one game obviously that increases our chances significantly. If we can win two games then we have a very good chance of being in.”

The Mountaineers (32-14) are coming off a tough weekend at first-place St. John’s last weekend. West Virginia had its chances in two of the three games, losing 2-1 to the Red Storm in 10 innings in game one and then taking a three-run lead into the bottom of the ninth in game three.

“We played right with them and St. John’s is an excellent team,” Van Zant said. “They are definitely worthy of being ranked in the Top 25 (No. 20 in Collegiate Baseball and No. 21 in Baseball America). Their pitching is about as good as you can have in college baseball. I don’t get a chance to see all of the pitching staffs because there are just too many teams but you’ve got to believe they have one of the 10-best pitching staffs in the country.”

West Virginia’s best opportunity to snag a win came on Sunday following Joe Agreste’s grand slam that gave the Mountaineers a 5-2 lead. Closer Chris Enourato got out of a jam in the eighth inning but quickly ran into trouble in the ninth.

“Their leadoff hitter took a 1-2 slider and hooked it down the leftfield line for a double. Chris once again gets ahead of the second batter 1-2 and he hits a flair that goes just over Tyler Kuhn’s glove for a hit to make it first and third,” Van Zant said. “The third batter crushed a long home run over the leftfield fence to tie the game.

“It’s bedlam up there and our guys are shell shocked. This all happens within a matter of about two minutes,” Van Zant said.

With one out, St. John’s wins the game with another long home run.

“We could have won game one and we had a great chance to win game three,” Van Zant said.

West Virginia has been idle all week due to final examinations and will be facing a Louisville program coming off a College World Series appearance in 2007. Despite having seven regulars gone from that team, Louisville has managed to keep pace with a 33-16 record including a 13-8 mark in Big East play. The Cardinals have one of the best power hitters in the country in third baseman Chris Dominguez.

“He’s a big-time player who is probably going to one day be playing in the big leagues,” Van Zant said.

Also in the middle of the Cardinal lineup is power-hitting first baseman Andrew Clark, a Mississippi transfer.

“They’ve got two big guys in the middle of their lineup,” Van Zant said.

Like St. John’s last weekend, West Virginia will once again be facing top-notch starting pitching this weekend. Louisville will start a pair of lefties on Saturday and Sunday.

“We’ve got to try and get into their bullpen this weekend,” Van Zant said.

Twenty four of West Virginia’s 32 wins have come at home this year. The Mountaineers are 9-3 in Big East home games this year including sweeps of Pitt and Connecticut. Louisville is 9-7 in road games this year.

“What we’re going to do is just try and win one game – the game that we’re playing,” said Van Zant.

Saturday’s doubleheader is a dollar day with admission and select concessions priced at $1.

Briefly:

# All three games this weekend will be carried on WAJR-AM 1440 in Morgantown as well as on the student radio station U-92 FM. U-92’s broadcast can also be heard for free on the Internet.

# West Virginia has added a game to its schedule with the cancellation of the Maryland game two weeks ago. On Monday West Virginia will face Youngstown State in a doubleheader that will get underway at 4 pm. With eight regular season games remaining and a possible berth in the Big East Tournament, West Virginia still has a chance to reach 40 wins for the year. That has only been done one time in program history in 1994.

# Tyler Kuhn continues to lead West Virginia in hitting with a .431 batting average. The senior has a team-best .706 slugging percentage to go with 51 RBI.

Freshman Jedd Gyorko boosted his batting average to .423 with a solid weekend at St. John’s. The Morgantown native shows six home runs, 16 doubles and 54 RBI in one of the best freshman offensive campaigns in school history.

Sophomore Vince Belnome also continues to hit at a .400 clip at .404 to go with a team-best 61 RBI. The Mountaineers are hitting .350 as a team.