Marshall and West Virginia are scheduled to meet for the third and final time in the baseball regular season on Wednesday.
The final game is played at a neutral site, GoMart Ballpark in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä. Tickets to the game have already sold out.
The Mountaineers (37-5) enter ranked No. 16 by D1Baseball, No. 4 in the nation by Perfect Game and eighth by Baseball America. WVU is coming off of a weekend road Big 12 sweep of UCF.
WVU is 16-3 in the Big 12, sitting in first place, and its RPI is 15th.
The Thundering Herd (23-22, 9-12 Sun Belt Conference) swept league foe South Alabama at Jack Cook Field in Huntington over the weekend, scoring 18 runs on 23 hits in three games. Marshall has now won five straight.
The Herd is on the bubble for making the SBC tournament, tied for 10th in the league with Georgia State and Texas State.
“We’re really focused on this team and what we can do,†Marshall coach Greg Beals said in a release following the Sunday win. “Our goal is to make it to Montgomery [Alabama] and play in the conference tournament so that we can get a taste of championship baseball.â€
Marshall has three more conference series remaining — road trips to Old Dominion and Georgia State and a final series against Georgia Southern that begins at home on May 15.
“We just need to keep playing good baseball,†Beals said. “We have five in a row now in the win column. Going to ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä is a great event. [West Virginia] coach [Steve] Sabins and I are in agreeance with playing three games a season and getting that game in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä — we always have a great turnout, and it’s already been declared a sellout. It’ll be a great day for baseball in the state of West Virginia.â€
WVU won the first two games of the season series. In Granville, West Virginia won 7-0 and held Marshall to four hits. WVU’s Chase Swain had a home run and finished a 2-for-4 outing with two runs and two RBIs.
In that first contest, Marshall did not have a player with more than one hit. Herd pitcher Fenix Digiacomo took the loss by allowing six earned runs on four hits.
In the second game, in Huntington, Marshall took then-No. 21 WVU to the wire, losing on a go-ahead steal of home in the ninth inning, 5-4.
Joel Gardner had two doubles, driving in a run. The Herd also got a better composite from the bullpen as no pitcher relented more than three hits, but a miscue from Marshall pitcher Tim Baird in which he didn’t notice Swain stealing home allowed the fatal blow.
Marshall now is coming off one of its hottest weeks, totaling 60 runs on 68 hits in the past seven days.
Eddie Leon leads Marshall with a .278 batting average. Ethan Murdoch is now up to nine homers. Peyton Jackson, projected to pitch Wednesday for the Herd, is 2-2 with a 1.47 ERA and 35 strikeouts in 30 2/3 innings.
“It’s great, coming out and getting the sweep,†Beals said of the Herd’s weekend success. “Winning today and taking care of business, we needed that. We’re climbing the ladder in those [Sun Belt Conference] standings. We have three more weeks to hopefully continue doing the same thing.â€
As for the Mountaineers, WVU is tied with No. 1-ranked Texas for the highest winning percentage in the country at .881. Skylar King leads the Mountaineers with a .361 batting average. Jace Rinehart leads WVU in RBIs with 43. He and Logan Sauve have seven homers apiece to lead the team.
