Golden Bears to host play-in series starting Friday
Apr. 25—A season of celebration for WVU Tech baseball will see the Golden Bears with one more chance to play in front of the home crowd.
Thanks to a new postseason format, all 12 River States Conference teams will have a chance to play for a NAIA Tournament berth. That begins this weekend with six best-of-3 play-in series.
The Golden Bears earned the right to host one of those series as the No. 3 seed out of the East Division. They will host West No. 6 IUP-Columbus, starting with Game 1 Friday at 2 p.m. at Linda K. Epling Stadium.
Game 2 will be Saturday at noon. A third game, if necessary, would follow at 3:30 p.m.
All games will be nine innings.
It's been a successful season for the Golden Bears (25-20 overall, 13-11 RSC) in their first season playing at their hometown stadium since 2019. They go in on a four-game winning streak, including a three-game conference sweep of Ohio Christian.
Tech ended the regular season with a 13-11 slugfest win over Bluefield. In that game, Greater Beckley Christian graduated Reece Patterson made his second start behind the plate and went 5 for 5 with a pair of doubles and four runs batted in.
Tech is fourth in the league with a .304 team batting average and is averaging 7.2 runs per game. Woodrow Wilson graduate Hunter Fansler is tied with Noah Lukas for the team lead with a .392 batting average. Fansler is also the team leader in home runs with eight and his 32 RBIs are second to Will Gray (39).
The Golden Bears' staff earned run average of 5.54 is fourth in the conference. Starter Robert Kelley, a three-time RSC Pitcher of the Week, is tied for first in the nation with 104 strikeouts over 74 innings (12.65 per nine innings). He is 8-3 with a 3.65 ERA.
Matthew Gainer is 5-4 with a 3.60 ERA and Tyler Wilkinson 1-2, 6.91.
Tech took two out of three from IUP-Columbus March 1-2 in Indianapolis.
A first-year RSC team, the Crimson Pride (10-40, 2-22) has lost 16 straight games. Leading the way has been Lucas Slager with a team-high .347 batting average and co-leading 36 RBIs.
The Crimson Pride has a staff ERA of 9.56, 10th in the conference.
The play-in series winners will advance to the RSC Tournament starting May 2 in Chillicothe, Ohio.
The Nos. 1 and 2 seeds have automatically qualified for Chillicothe, but are playing this weekend to determine tournament seeding. West No. 1 Indiana Southeast is hosting East No. 1 Point Park, with the winner being crowned the regular season champion and the top RSC Tournament seed.
West No. 2 Indiana-Kokomo is hosting East No. 2 Shawnee State to determine the Nos. 3 and 4 seeds.
Both of those series started on Thursday.
Once the play-in series are over, an eight-team pod bracket will be determined. The winner of each pod will receive an automatic bid to the NAIA Tournament.
The RSC Tournament championship will be one single-elimination game.
Email: gfauber@register-herald.com; follow on X @gfauber5
