Monday night the West Virginia pitching staff held Danville to just seven hits in a 4-2 win.
The Miners could not duplicate that feat Tuesday when they went for the series sweep at Linda K. Epling Stadium.
Exploding for 16 hits, the Dans secured the series split with a 12-6 win over the Miners.
However, the Dans were not alone with a big night at the plate as West Virginia pounded out 10 hits in the setback.
“I will say this. When you have to bury balls down the middle, it makes a huge difference. At this level, the minor league level, you cannot force guys to throw it down the middle and it help anybody on both side,” West Virginia manager Tim Epling said. “When you look at us overall, guys threw the ball as good as we have had all year. They were not being called strikes on both sides. I take that in consideration with the score.”
The Dans scored first again in game two of the series with a little help from the Miners.
A leadoff walk and a botched pick-off attempt led to a pair of runs and a 2-0 lead for the visitors after two innings of play.
After collecting just one hit over the first two frames, the Miners strung together five hits in the third to take their first lead of the game.
Silas Butler doubled home the first run and later scored on a sacrifice fly before RBI singles from Alex Christie and Coby Tweeten made it 4-2.
Unfortunately for West Virginia, the advantage was short lived because Danville answered with five runs in the top of the fourth.
Jonathon Thomas doubled home a run before Drake Digiorno smacked a three-run blast to put the Dans back in front.
An RBI-single from Cam Swanger capped the scoring and Danville never trailed the remainder of the night.
The Miners trimmed the Dans’ lead to one run in the bottom of the fourth when Barrett Riebock hit a two-run home run, but that was the last glimmer of hope for the home team.
Chase Vinson led off the sixth inning for Danville with a triple to the left-center gap and scored on a sacrifice fly from Jack Ellis.
Swanger followed with a massive blast to left for a 9-6 lead before the Dans added three more runs in the seventh to put the game out of reach.
Digiorno and Swanger drove in three runs for the Dans, while Riebock had three RBI for the Miners.
“We didn’t have our starting pitcher today. He said his arm got tight the other day, so we had to revamp things right from the beginning,” Epling said. “We just have a limited pitching staff right now.”
West Virginia is off Wednesday before opening a two-game series against Terre Haute starting Thursday.
Former MLB great Darryl Strawberry will throw out the ceremonial first pitch before the Thursday contest.
