Cowboy Baseball's Conference Win Streak Snapped

Saturday, April 14

Morgantown, WV

3:00 CST

Oklahoma State University

19-13-1, 8-3

West Virginia

16-16, 2-6

Oklahoma State

West Virginia

Christian Funk

April 14, 2018 | Cowboy Baseball

Box Score

Box Score (PDF)

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – After seven-straight conference victories, Oklahoma State had its winning streak snapped Saturday in a 10-7 loss to West Virginia at Monongalia County Ballpark.

The loss dropped the Cowboys to 8-3 in Big 12 play and 19-13-1 overall and sets up a Sunday rubber game, which is scheduled for an 11 a.m. first pitch, with OSU trying to claim its third consecutive league series win.

OSU's seven-game conference winning streak tied for the fourth longest by an OSU team in Big 12 history and also tied for the program's longest in six seasons under head coach Josh Holliday.

Offensively, Matt Kroon paced the Cowboys with a 3-for-4 Saturday that included a pair of doubles, while Christian Funk was 2-for-3 with a double, two walks and three RBIs.

Carson Teel took the loss on the mound to fall to 4-2. The junior southpaw lasted just one inning as WVU sent 11 batters to the plate against him and tallied six runs.

"Carson Teel has been about as dependable and rock solid as you can get, and they got to him a little bit early; he didn't have great feel for the ball. But when your leader – and Carson is our leader – has a tough day, you try to pick him up because that guy has been dragging us around on his shoulders for the better part of this season," Holliday said. "We chipped away, hung in there and competed fiercely all day long, and in the eighth inning were one eyelash away from having the game back in our favor.

"We came at them hard and didn't back off. We competed awfully good. On a scale of 1-10, what was the fierceness with which we played? We played at a 10. The execution and some of the smaller things, yeah they got away from us, but that's baseball… The kids fought like crazy. Even though the scoreboard wasn't in our favor, our approach to the game was correct and our fierceness to compete was very good."

For the second consecutive game, OSU took a 1-0 lead in its first at bat. Cameron Dobbs led off the game with a walk, and Kroon was hit by a pitch. The next two Cowboys struck out, but Funk came up with a clutch hit as he singled to center field to give the Pokes a 1-0 advantage.

Like in the opener, OSU's early lead did not hold up as WVU (16-16, 2-6) roughed up Teel for six runs on five hits in the bottom of the first. After a leadoff walk, the Mountaineers drove in two runs on three-straight singles to go up 2-1, and a two-RBI single with the bases loaded later in the inning pushed the advantage to three. A triple by Tyler Doanes brought home two more runs to make it 6-1 before Teel got out of the inning.

OSU plated a run in the fourth on an RBI groundout by Cade Cabbiness to cut its deficit to 6-2, but the Mountaineers would get the run back in the fifth.

The Cowboys would cut into the WVU lead again in the sixth. Funk scored OSU's third run when he came home on an error before an RBI single by McCusker make the score 7-4.

Trailing 8-5 going into the eighth, OSU was poised to finally overtake the Mountaineers. With a pair of runners on and one out, Kroon cut the WVU lead to two with an RBI single. After a strikeout, the Cowboys loaded the bases on a hit by pitch, and Funk then drew an RBI walk to cut the deficit to 8-7.

That was as close as the Pokes would get, however, as Neustifter flied out to end the inning. In the bottom of the frame, Reza Aleaziz came out of the bullpen with a runner on first and struck out the first two hitters he faced before surrendering a two-run home run to Marques Inman to put WVU up by the final 10-7 margin.