Penn State baseball (10-24, 4-11 Big Ten) dropped a neutral-site midweek contest to No. 15 West Virginia (25-8, 10-5 Big 12) on Wednesday night at Meritus Park in Hagerstown, Maryland.

Jack Porter had a strong day with a home run and three hits, but the rest of the offense was held in check. West Virginia scored three runs early and coasted from there to take down the Nittany Lions.

How It Happened

David Hagen got the start for West Virginia and worked around a one-out walk of Michael Anderson to start the game with a scoreless inning.

Mason Butash took the bump for Penn State, making his first start of the season. After getting the first two outs, he served up an 0-2 pitch to Paul Schoenfield that was blasted for a home run to right field to open the scoring.

The lead only lasted a few pitches for the Mountaineers, as Porter led off the top of the second with his second home run of the season to tie the game at one for Penn State. Kevin Karstetter worked a one-out walk to make Hagen work, but he was stranded on second base.

Butash pitched a 1-2-3 bottom half of the second, while Hagen responded with a scoreless inning of his own, helped out by a heads-up play by Matt Ineich at shortstop.

West Virginia got its second hit of the day on a one-out triple by Brock Wills in the third. After a walk by Ineich chased Butash for Harrison Lollin, the Mountaineers re-took the lead on a sacrifice fly by Gavin Kelly before a double and an RBI infield single by Sean Smith made it 3-1 after three.

Penn State’s offense got two-out singles in both the fourth and fifth innings against new pitcher Ian Korn, but weren’t able to capitalize. Lollin held down the fort with two scoreless innings after finishing the third in relief of Butash.

Weston Smith took over for West Virginia in the sixth and gave up a one-out double to Porter, but navigated the heart of the Nittany Lions’ order to strand him on third base. Lollin walked the leadoff batter in the bottom half, but got the next two outs before being lifted for Mason Horwat, who closed out the inning.

Reese Bassinger struck out a pair for the Mountaineers in a quick seventh inning, but Horwat once again matched him with a strong bottom half of the inning.

Anderson led off the eighth with a walk, but was quickly erased on a 6-6-3 double play. Dimond Loosli took over for the bottom of the eighth and struck out a pair in another strong inning for the pitching staff.

That pitching staff held West Virginia in check the entire game, but Penn State’s offense was sidelined all day long. Porter singled for his third hit of the day to open the ninth, but was erased on another double play. Karstetter struck out to end the game as Bassinger closed out a nine-out save.

Takeaways

• On a day when the offense was completely muted against an elite pitching staff, Jack Porter had one of his best games of the season. He finished a triple shy of the cycle in a three-hit afternoon. The rest of the team managed just two hits.
• The pitching staff has been very inconsistent all season, and in most losses, was usually at fault. Despite not throwing many of its high-leverage relievers, the pitching staff held a top-15 team in the country to just three runs. The bullpen, in particular, dominated with 5.2 combined shutout innings.
• I don’t really know the significance of playing on a neutral site in rural Maryland, but the small park that’s home to just an independent ball team hosted over 4,000 fans to this regional rivalry and got a good game out of it.
• The next time these two teams play? Two weeks from now on Dollar Dog Night in State College. Penn State set an attendance record in last year’s major upset victory and is looking to do it again.

What’s Next?

Penn State baseball returns home to Medlar Field at Lubrano Park to start a three-game weekend series against Rutgers, beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, April 17. The game will be broadcast on BTN+.