Baseball 9 Wins 14 Straight

By Delano Farley
Inside the March 20 issue of “The Chronicle,” I wrote an article about how the WVU baseball team was off to its best start in several years. The Mountaineer men’s baseball team had a 6-3 win-loss record at that time. Well, even now, the statement about its best start still holds true, as the WVU baseball team has won 14 games in a row since that article, and have improved their team record to 19 wins versus three losses in season play.

The Mountaineer men hold the nation’s fourth longest winning streak at this time, including their best start in the Big East conference in almost ten years with a 3-0 record, all of which were wins against backyard rival Pittsburgh who had won the last six games against WVU in conference play.

WVU recorded wins against Niagara (2), St. Peters (3), Norfolk State (1), Eastern Michigan (3), and St. Bonaventure (1) before sweeping Pittsburgh in a three-game series. They have also won the first of three games with Maryland-Eastern Shore. Inside that 14-game span, only two of the wins were decided by one run, and two runs decided another win. The other eleven wins were won by four runs or more including a 17-4 win over Niagara, an 18-0 pounding of St. Peters, an 18-4 beating of St. Bonaventure, and their most recent conquest against Maryland-Eastern Shore which was 16-0.

Pitching staff members Dan Leatherman, Eric Saffell, Joe Stupka, and Brendan Bergerson all have undefeated records from the mound for the Mountaineers, while Kenny Durst, Marty Fagler, and Matt Yurish have only lost once. Saffell currently has a 0.53 earned run average while Leatherman has a 1.48 ERA.

The Mountaineers best hitting starter right now is Adam White with a .429 batting average, while also holding a .506 on base percentage. Tyler Kuhn holds a .414 batting average for the Mountaineers while also managing a .500 on base average. White also has the most stolen bases on the team with 14 steals in 14 attempts. As a team, they have stolen 47 bases on 50 attempts while limiting their opponents to 13 bases on 24 tries.