The Kansas State baseball team won their first series in Big 12 play on Sunday with a win over the 21st-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers 11-4.
The Wildcats won back-to-back games against the Mountaineers after dropping their first game of the series 9-7 on Friday.
On Sunday, the Mountaineers jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the fourth and added one more run in the fifth after a hard ground ball to short took a bounce off the shortstop’s glove. This play allowed West Virginia sophomore infielder Kyle Gray to score from third for a fourth run.
However, the Wildcats shut them out the remainder of the game. The Cats got rolling in the fifth, scoring five runs off freshman right-handed pitcher Kade Strowd. K-State wouldn’t look back for the rest of the game.
In the bottom of the sixth inning, senior infielder Josh Ethier led off with a double deep to center field. Freshman outfielder Will Brennan had a sacrifice bunt to advance Ethier to third base, who would later score off a line shot. The shot went all the way to the right field wall for an RBI double from senior infielder Quintin Crandall to extend the K-State lead to 6-4.
K-State would add one more run off a rare bunt from senior first baseman Jake Scudder to make it 7-4.
In the bottom of the seventh, the Cats added one more to their total with a lead-off solo home run from sophomore catcher Josh Rolette.
In the bottom of the eighth it was the same story for the Cats, as Crandall led off with a solo home run to take one more run on. The Wildcats would hit two more home runs that same inning, one from Scudder and the other coming from Rolette to make it 11-4.
Head coach Brad Hill then brought in sophomore right hander Hudson Treu to close out the game. After giving up a hit and later a walk, Treu was able to get freshman right-handed pitcher Brandon White to ground out to third to end the game.
In all, the Cats finished with 13 hits and four home runs to improve to 21-19 on the season.
K-State will face Arkansas next on Tuesday at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri.
