Beckley – After Saturday night’s doubleheader loss against Chillicothe, the West Virginia Miners were hoping to avenge themselves in Sunday night’s game at Linda K. Epling Stadium.
Unfortunately for the Miners, the weather wouldn’t allow them the chance.
Like Saturday night’s first game, the Miners started poorly with an error by Denver Blinn to give Chili their second run of the first inning.
Designated hitter Malik Williams wouldn’t let the offense start poorly, getting the Miners off to a promising start in the bottom of the first inning. He notched a two-out RBI-single to send Denver Blinn home. By the end of the first, the host team managed to get bases loaded, but left them all stranded the next play.
The Miners found their rhythm defensively in the top of the second inning with a great amount of hustle. Left fielder David Meech sprinted his way to get the second flyout while starting pitcher Tom Walker got his first strikeout of the night to end the inning.
Team manager Tim Epling spoke about the mental part of baseball that helped the Miners get going.
“There comes a point and time when the mental part of the game goes over into the physical,” Epling said. “You see the mental part really break players down, like do you want to play or do you not want to play, can you handle pressure or can you not handle pressure.”
“You have to find ways to win and that’s the number one way to find a way to win. It’s easy to win games when you’re up four or five, but how about when things are tightened up, it’s how do you react under that.”
The bottom of the third came in looking promising with two on base, but the weather would put a quick end to that. The game paused with a rain delay, then suspended 20 minutes after with a storm approaching the field.
The game ended 2-1 in the Paints favor.
Both teams will meet again Tuesday in Chillicothe at 7:05p.m.