Bridgeport’s McDougal extends WVU's season

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – During a long, 12-hour day when West Virginia pounded out 23 hits and 21 runs in victories over Wake Forest and Kentucky, you knew for the Mountaineers to keep their postseason hopes alive, somebody in a gold-colored jersey was going to have to man-up on the pitching mound.

WVU got it in the first game from starter Dawson Montesa, who ate up 7 1/3 innings in a 10-5 victory over the Demon Deacons in an elimination game, and then Bridgeport’s Ben McDougal seized his opportunity in a thrilling 11-9 come-from-behind victory over Kentucky in the nightcap.

Considering Montessa has been in the starting pitching rotation and has now thrown 71 innings this season, his performance today was believable.

McDougal’s wasn’t, unless you are Ben McDougal, of course.

His longest outing prior to tonight was a two-inning stint against Marshall back on May 5^th when he faced eight Thundering Herd batters, giving up two hits and a run in a 7-2 Mountaineer victory.

The longest stint of his West Virginia career came last year against Kansas State when he threw 4 2/3 innings in a 10-3 triumph.

Neither appearance was in high-leverage situations.

Tonight’s was.

The former Bridgeport High and Potomac State performer came into the game to replace reliever Carson Estridge in the bottom of the fifth with West Virginia trailing 7-6 and Kentucky poised to add more runs.

But the lefthander got Tyler Bell and Luke Lawrence to strike out and then Hudson Brown to ground out to first to end the inning.

He pitched a scoreless sixth before surrendering back-to-back home runs to Jayce Tharnish and Bell in the seventh. Undeterred, McDougal finished the inning by getting Lawrence to fly out to left and he put up another zero in the bottom of the eighth to keep the Mountaineers within striking distance for their dramatic comeback.

“There was a little bit of frustration because, personally, I think if I don’t fall deep into those counts, those home runs aren’t hit,” McDougal said afterward of his two mistakes. “So, I just tried to reset and tried to tell myself to attack early on.”

In West Virginia’s half of the ninth, Kentucky reliever Oliver Boone was called for a balk faking a pickoff throw to first, allowing Tyrus Hall to score the tying run, and then Paul Schoenfeld delivered the biggest hit of the game with a 92-mile-per-hour home run that just got over the right field fence and into the WVU bullpen to plate Armani Guzman and give the Mountaineers an 11-9 lead.

“I got a lot of spin on the ball. I’ve only hit four of them this year,” Schoenfeld joked.

Then came the bottom of the ninth, with West Virginia needing to get the final three outs because of the NCAA’s rotating homefield rule in postseason play. That meant coach Steve Sabins and pitching coordinator Justin Oney had to decide who they wanted out there to register the game’s three most difficult outs.

McDougal was their guy.

“Oney looked at me and said, ‘You good?’ I said, ‘I’m ready to go’ and that was pretty much it,” the senior said. “I was in that situation last year, and I knew I could do it this year as well.”

McDougal got Scott Campbell out on strikes to lead off the ninth, induced Caeden Cloud into hitting a harmless infield flyout, and then worked around Owen Jenkins’s single to center by getting Tharnish to fly out to left to end the game.

Sabins admitted afterward that he was hopeful of being able to manage his pitching situation just enough to get to the middle innings tonight.

“We were keeping McDougal on the back end the whole time because we thought if everything went our way, he could throw five or six innings, because we’ve seen him do that,” the coach said. “UCF last year, he came into the game, and it was somewhat of a similar situation where we were low on arms, we thought it was just going to be a left-on-left matchup, and he got an out with one pitch. Then we left him out there, and all of a sudden, you looked back up and it was three or four innings.”

Sabins continued.

“We were laughing because we had other guys in the pen warming up (to get the final out), but I’m like, ‘Am I going to go get McDougal out of this game with two outs in the ninth? This is McDougal’s game,'” he said. “I’m really glad that he finished that game.”

Because of it, McDougal’s teammates have an opportunity to try and finish off another one on Monday night.