Kentucky baseball (29-25, 13-17 SEC) fell short in walk off fashion 4-3 to West Virginia (42-14, 19-9 ACC) in game one of the Clemson Regional.
Both teams had to wait two hours and 45 minutes for a chance to advance one step closer to Omaha due to a lengthy rain delay.
Game one of a regional is paramount to success as approximately 81% of regional winners win their first game and both teams treated it as such by sending their aces to the mound.
Once play began, West Virginia was the home team due to being the higher seed in the regional, which meant Griffin Kirn took the mound in the first.
The Wildcats quickly put pressure on the Mountaineers ace by loading the bases with one out as Tyler Bell walked, Luke Lawrence was hit by a pitch and James McCoy singled.
However, the threat was quickly nullified as Ryan Schwartz hit into a frame-ending double play.
Ben Cleaver worked around a single in the first to keep the Mountaineers off the scoreboard.
The next two innings were the pitchers’ duel that the game appeared to be on paper as both hurlers kept the opposing team off the board.
Schwartz ripped a one-out double to right-center and moved to third on a single by Patrick Herrera.
Kyuss Gargett reached on a bunt single that scored Schwartz and got the Cats on the board.
The Wildcats took a gamble and stole both runners and it paid off as Devin Burkes hit a grounder and Brodie Kresser sailed the throw, which allowed two more runs to score and Kentucky’s lead grew to 3-0.
Cleaver responded to the run support with a three-up, three-down fourth inning of work.
West Virginia got a rally of its own going in the fifth thanks to some major Kentucky errors as a fielding error by Herrera put runners on the corners with one out. Cleaver hit the next batter to load the bases.
Jace Rinehart hit a grounder to Lawrence, and he sailed the throw past a stretched McCoy at first, which allowed two runs to score and shrunk the Kentucky lead to 3-2.
Cleaver came back to the mound in the sixth with his pitch count creeping near 100 and he gave up a leadoff double to Gavin Kelly.
West Virginia used a sacrifice bunt and groundout to bring home Kelly and tie the game 3-3.
Both teams went six-up, six-down over the next two innings to send the game to the ninth inning still tied.
Another Mountaineers error to start the ninth allowed Gargett to reach first. Carson Hansen moved him to second on a sacrifice bunt.
West Virginia opted to intentionally walk Bell and bring up Lawrence in a massive spot. However, the junior struck out to end the threat.
Simon Gregersen took over in the seventh for Cleaver and tossed two scoreless innings before taking the hill in the bottom of the ninth.
The right-hander gave up a leadoff double to Kresser, which ended his outing.
Nick Mingione and company chose to call upon Jackson Nove with the game on the line. Kresser moved to third on a ball that got away from Devin Burkes.
Armani Guzman hit a flyball to center that Griffin Cameron dove to make a great catch, but Kresser scored to win the game for West Virginia.
Following the game one loss, Kentucky will now have the hardest path to keeps its season alive as it will have to win four straight elimination games in three days.
The first of those games will be against the loser of Clemson and USC Upstate and it will take place on Saturday, May 31, with first pitch set for noon ET.
