It was a two-man show for the most part on Friday night in game one between West Virginia and Queens.
Brodie Kresser went 3-for-3 with two RBIs at the plate, but Griffin Kirn stole the show.
The Division II transfer making only his third start as a Mountaineer turned in an 8.0 inning performance, striking out 10 and holding the Lions to one run and five hits as the Mountaineers stayed unbeaten, beating them 7-1 in game one.
The Mountaineers looked somewhat laxidasical early as they ran into outs multiple times on the bases. Kresser was picked off at second in the first, while Armani Guzman was thrown out at the plate trying to score from first on a single from Kresser to end the third inning.
Queens got to Kirn in the first inning, but Kirn would quickly settle in. The Lions tagged Kirn for a leadoff single and then an error from Kirn on a pickoff attempt put a runner on second. Justin Hudson then singled for Queens to put them on the board, 1-0.
West Virginia's (9-0) offense scuffled to string hits together throughout the first few innings. The Mountaineers had one hit in the second, two in the third, and a hit in the fourth, but didn't get any runs to show for it.
In the fifth, they would show up in an acrobatic way on both offense and defense.
Skylar King walked and advanced to third on an error, before he would try to score on a fly out off the bat of Armani Guzman. King would have to evade the tag at the plate, going towards the mound before contorting his body towards the plate, touching it with his fingertips to tie the game at 1-1. The Mountaineers would then take a 2-1 lead as Kresser hit a two-out double to right field, plating Grant Hussey.
After running into trouble in the first, Kirn was untouchable. Kirn retired the next 13 batters he faced, until Queens got a single in the sixth inning. That would not slow Kirn down as he worked into the eighth inning without being challenged by the Lions.
That changed in the eighth as Queens pieced two hits together in succession, earning a visit to the mound to talk to Kirn. Kirn did what he had done eight other times on the evening, striking out the next two batters he faced, earning strikeouts nine and ten on the evening, sending the game to the ninth.
West Virginia's offense would get Kirn insurance runs as the game hit the later innings. In the seventh, Kresser doubled home Chase Swain before he scored on a Logan Sauve RBI single. Then in the eighth, WVU took a 6-1 lead as Hussey drove in King and then Sauve walked to score Spencer Barnett.
WVU added one more run in the ninth as King scored on a wild pitch before Benjamin Hudson pitched a scoreless ninth to end the game.
West Virginia improves to 9-0 on the season, their best start to a season since 1964. Game two of the series is set for 2:00 p.m.
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