Baseball Falls to West Virginia 17-3 in Weekend Finale

Connecticut vs West Virginia (Apr 27, 2008)

MORGANTOWN, W. Va. (April 27, 2008) — An eight run sixth inning led the West Virginia Mountaineers passed the University of Connecticut baseball team 17-3 on Sunday afternoon in BIG EAST Conference action at Hawley Field.

After the weekend series, the Mountaineers improve to 32-11 overall this season while the Huskies fall to 21-25 and 7-14 in BIG EAST play.

The Mountaineers scored first in today's game with one run in the first inning as a hit batter by UConn starting pitcher, Mike Hashem (North Andover, Mass.) was able to score off a Vince Belnome single to right field.

UConn put its first run on the board in the fourth inning as freshman Mike Olt (Branford, Conn.) singled up the middle and advanced to second on a Mike Nemeth (Washington, N.J.) ground out. Olt was able to score the unearned run as sophomore Peter Fatse (Hampden, Mass.) reached base on an error by Mountaineer's third baseman, Belnome.  In the bottom of the inning West Virginia's Joe Agneste reached base on a fielder's choice and moved into scoring position on a Jordon Yost walk. But Dan Dibartolomeo gave the Mountaineers a 4-1 lead as he hit a three-run homerun before the inning ended.

In the fifth, the Mountaineers added to their tally as Justin Parks led off the inning with a single to right center. Tyler Kuhn scored Parks as he doubled to center field before Hashem was taken out of the game. Senior Matt Karl (Wallingford, Conn.) came into the game for the Huskies but got into some trouble quickly. After two straight walks, a wild pitch and another walk, head coach Jim Penders replaced Karl with Doug Jennings. After two hits and four runs scored, including a Parks homerun, the Huskies got out of the inning trailing 12-1.

The Huskies got two runs back in the top of the sixth inning led by senior Pat Mahoney (Des Moines, Iowa) with a homerun over the left field wall. On the blast, he scored Elliot Glynn (Los Alamitos, Calif.) who led off the inning with a single to right field.

West Virginia added four more runs on four hits in the seventh inning along with one more run in the eighth inning on two doubles.

Hashem took the loss to drop to 2-2 overall this season as he went 4.0 innings allowing five hits and seven runs. Freshman Ted Hurvul pitched along with three other relief pitchers, and let in four runs off four hits in two innings thrown.

West Virginia's Yurish took the win to improve to 5-1 on the year as he threw 8.1 innings allowing seven hits and two earned runs. Yurish also struck out six on the afternoon.

UConn's Pat Mahoney ended the game with two hits and two RBIs as Nemeth added two hits as well.

UConn will return to action on Tuesday as the Huskies host Vermont in non-conference play at 3:00 p.m. at J.O. Christian Field.

-UCONN-