Jim Mashek

TOPS REMAIN IN FIRST-PLACE TIE WITH DALLAS BAPTIST IN LEAGUE STANDINGS; WKU TO PLAY HOST TO EVANSVILLE ON TUESDAY NIGHT

Western Kentucky University’s nationally ranked baseball team needed a bounce-back effort in Saturday’s Game Three against traditional rival Middle Tennessee State.

The No. 20 Hilltoppers got that, and a lot more.

WKU sophomore right-hander Drew Whalen guided the Tops through seven strong innings, and teammate Kyle Hayes hit a home run for the third consecutive game, as Western zapped MTSU, 9-1, in the third and decisive game of their Conference USA series at Nick Denes Field.

Third-year WKU coach Marc Rardin liked the way his team responded after Friday’s 10-3 loss at the hands of the Blue Raiders.

“When it’s a rubber match, we always talk about that third game,” Rardin said. “It’s just a ‘juice’ game. It’s about energy. It’s about effort, it’s about will. And luckily, in a third game like this, we’ve got Drew Whalen.

“So that works.”

Western Kentucky remained in a first-place tie with Dallas Baptist University in the C-USA standings, improving to 33-7 overall and 11-4 in conference play. MTSU, struggling through an 18-22 season under third-year head coach Jerry Meyers, fell to 4-11 in C-USA. The Hilltoppers will play host to Evansville University on Tuesday night at The Nick. The Aces are 13-25 overall and 7-8 in the Missouri Valley Conference.

“We know we have a deep pitching staff, and that sets the tone for us,” Hayes said when it was over.

That’s exactly what Whalen had in mind, as he hurled four shutout innings before the Blue Raiders managed their lone run in the top of the fifth. Whalen has an impressive arsenal of five or six pitches — “I’ve never been able to throw a change-up,” he said — but equally important, he’s walked just 18 batters in 51 1/3 innings pitched, without allowing a single home run.

Which helps explain why the 6-foot-1 sophomore right-hander from Franklin, Tennessee, is sporting an impressive 8-1 record with a miniscule 1.79 ERA.

“After the past couple days, I felt like I needed to to attack early,” Whalen said. “Establish the fastball. The wind was blowing in again, so I wasn’t afraid to let them hit it. My fastball was working really well today.”

WKU needed a dramatic eighth-inning rally, scoring five runs to knock off MTSU 9-5 on Thursday, before the Blue Raiders’ Drew Horn stopped the Hilltoppers, 10-3, on Friday afternoon. Kyle Hayes, the Tops’ senior first baseman from West Chicago, Illinois, opened the bottom of the second inning with a towering home run to left-center field, his third homer in as many games.

Hayes would later add an RBI double, a shot off the wall in center field, that capped the Hilltoppers’ four-run fifth inning.

(Standout MTSU center fielder Eston Snider crashed into the wall and was treated by medical personnel before remaining in the game.)

“Thursday, before the game, I went into Coach (Derek) Francis’ office,” Hayes said. “Looked at some film, kind of bounced some ideas off each other. That’s what I love about the coaching staff … Huge communication aspect between coach and player. Really open to anything.

“So we bounced some ideas off each other, worked on it in BP (batting practice), and it paid off.”

Hayes said it was the first time he’d ever hit home runs in three consecutive games in his career. The 6-foot-1, 212-pound psychology major spent two years at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, before joining the Hilltoppers for the 2023-24 school year.

“You always want to make sure someone’s picking it up,” Rardin said. “People worry about (Ryan) Wideman, people worry about (Ethan) Lizama, people even worry about (Carlos) Vasquez, up there at the top of the order … And then there’s Hayes, kind of hiding down there (in the batting order).

“He starts getting the pitches, and he was taking advantage of it.”

Wideman, among the national leaders with 70 hits this season, went 2-for-5 with two RBI and a fifth-inning run scored. Wideman drilled a 1-2 pitch from MTSU left-hander Chandler Alderman for a two-run, two-out double to the left-field corner in the fifth, scoring himself on Hayes’ double to the wall in center field.

WKU added three more runs, two of them unearned, against MTSU left-hander Cole Torbett in the eighth inning. The Blue Raiders committed four errors, while the Hilltoppers were clean in that department after defensive struggles in the first two games of the series.

WKU right-hander Drew Whalen recorded nine strikeouts in seven innings, walking just one MTSU batter. Senior right-hander Treyson Peters pitched the final two innings without allowing a hit for the Hilltoppers.

MTSU’s Alderman took the loss, dropping to 3-6 on the season. The Blue Raiders will face another nationally ranked squad, No. 19 Vanderbilt, on Tuesday night in Nashville.