Jim Mashek

HILLTOPPERS COACH MARC RARDIN: ‘ALL THESE KIDS … KNOW WHAT WKU IS RIGHT NOW’

Third-year Western Kentucky University baseball coach Marc Rardin met with his squad in the Hilltoppers’ dugout for about 10 minutes after one of the team’s more dramatic victories in a season teeming with promise.

Maybe it wasn’t business as usual, after the Hilltoppers battled back from deficits THREE TIMES against traditional rival Middle Tennessee State on Thursday night, but WKU, ranked No. 20 nationally by Baseball America, is finding different ways to win.

On the heels of Tuesday’s 5-2 road loss to 17th-ranked Louisville, the narrative has certainly changed for the first-place team in Conference USA.

Western Kentucky survived some shaky moments on defense to zap MTSU, 9-5, before a paid crowd of 726 at WKU’s Nick Denes Field, a venue that has been awfully kind to Rardin’s squad heading into Easter Weekend.

The Hilltoppers improved to 32-6 overall and 10-3 in Conference USA — a half-game ahead of second-place Louisiana Tech and a full game over tradition-rich, third-place Dallas Baptist, the league’s baseball-only member that hasn’t missed the NCAA Tournament since 2013. (The COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the 2020 season in March of that year.)

Even more impressive, perhaps, is that Western Kentucky remains unbeaten in 23 home games, and the Hilltoppers will play 10 of their remaining 16 regular-season games at The Nick before leaving for Lynchburg, Virginia and the Liberty University campus for the C-USA Tournament.

Break it down any way you want, but these Tops are a resourceful bunch, and their profile is definitely on the rise.

“It’s the ‘new WKU’ that people are playing,” Rardin said. “All of these kids don’t know about what WKU was, four years ago. All they know is what WKU is right now.”

Rardin brought an aggressive, demanding approach to WKU baseball from Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, Iowa, located right across the Missouri River from Omaha and the home of the College World Series. Rardin won three NJCAA national championships in his 19 years at Iowa Western, and like most NCAA Division 1 coaches, he’s had to build new rosters, from season to season.

The Hilltoppers haven’t played in the NCAA Tournament since 2009, when former WKU coach Chris Finwood — now coaching at former Conference USA member Old Dominion University — guided Western to a Sun Belt Conference championship and 42-20 overall record. WKU forced a winner-take-all game against the Ole Miss Rebels that year in the NCAA Oxford Regional, but longtime MLB pitcher Drew Pomeranz stopped the Hilltoppers, 4-1, to move on to the Super Regional round.

Rardin has compiled a solid 101-54 record with the Hilltoppers, but the college baseball season is measured largely by what you do AFTER the Memorial Day weekend. In WKU’s case, getting there might be a little more than half the battle.

“We can play bad, and find a way to win,” Rardin said “Those first few innings, we just were so not ourselves … It’s about winning conference games. That’s where we’re at.”

WKU trailed the Blue Raiders, 5-4, when the Hilltoppers came to bat in the bottom of the eighth inning. MTSU reliever Will Jenkins had been effective in his first three frames, but the WKU bats came to life when it counted.

Jenkins surrendered a one-out home run to WKU’s Kyle Hayes, a shot that bounced off the top of the fence in right-center field, tying the game at 5. Then with two outs, the Hilltoppers’ Thomas Marsala crushed Jenkins’ 3-2 pitch for another solo home run, a towering blast, also to right-center field.

From there, the Blue Raiders (17-21 overall, 3-10 in Conference USA) simply fell apart.

WKU’s Reid Howard brought MTSU’s Cole Torbett out of the Blue Raiders bullpen with a bloop single to center field, and after a walk, and a balk, leadoff man Joe Siervo slapped a two-run single through the left side, extending the Tops’ lead to 9-5.

WKU sent 10 men to the plate in that inning, but Hilltoppers coach Marc Rardin was leaving nothing to chance. He brought in senior closer Cal Higgins, a 6-foot-4 left-hander who followed Rardin to WKU from Iowa Western CC, and the Blue Raiders could manage nothing more than a one-out single from third baseman Clay Badylak.

WKU reliever Lucas Hartman was the winning pitcher, scattering five hits and two runs, one earned, in his four innings on the mound. Jack Bennett, the Hilltoppers’ starting pitcher, lasted just two innings before yielding to senior left-hander Patrick Morris. Middle Tennessee State opened the scoring on Brett Vondohlen’s towering two-run home run to the left-field corner in the first inning, but the Blue Raiders’ 3-0 lead vanished in the bottom of the second.

MTSU’s Colin Kerrigan struggled with his control, walking three batters while retiring two WKU batters, before senior second baseman Austin Haller — the final man in Western’s lineup — ripped a bases-loaded double off the right-field wall to tie the game at 3.

After the Blue Raiders forged a 4-3 lead in the top of the fifth, WKU’s Kyle Hayes drilled a run-scoring triple to the wall in right-center field. MTSU turned a 4-6-3 double play to snuff out a seventh-inning threat, but Hartman and the Hilltoppers stayed within striking distance until Hayes and Marsala went yard.

MTSU coach Jerry Meyers will turn to his best pitcher, 5-foot-11 right-hander Drew Horn, for Friday’s Game Two. Holt (2-1, 1.57 ERA) and leadoff man Eston Snider (.369, 19 steals, 27 RBI) have managed to shine in what’s been a difficult season for the Blue Raiders, but they can hit for power (46 home runs in 38 games) and basically have nothing to lose.

Fast-working right-hander Dawson Hall (5-0, 1.33 ERA), a junior from Bowling Green High School, will get the start for the Hilltoppers. First pitch is scheduled for 3 p.m. on Friday, with the series finale set for 1 p.m. on Saturday.