Jim Mashek

FORMER BGHS STANDOUT DAWSON HALL, SENIOR LEFT-HANDER ZACH LYLES COMPLETE THE TASK AT HAND

Fourth-year Western Kentucky head baseball coach Marc Rardin was a little more animated, than usual, after the Hilltoppers’ game against visiting Kennesaw State on Saturday evening.

And that’s sayin’ something.

“That was like pulling teeth,” Rardin told WKU Radio’s Greg Davis, the Hilltoppers’ tennis coach, after the Hilltoppers finally closed the door on Kennesaw State, 8-6, in Game Two of the Conference USA series on a seasonably warm day at Nick Denes Field.

Western Kentucky overcame FIVE errors, a ninth-inning wild pitch and several missed opportunities at the plate, extending the Hilltoppers’ modest winning streak to four games.

The Tops will take it.

“We had great pitching … we didn’t have enough timely hitting,” Rardin said.

Western Kentucky improved to 24-20 overall, and 9-11 in Conference USA play, with intentions of breaking the logjam in the middle of the C-USA standings. The Owls dropped to 18-21 and 7-13, respectively, and WKU will look for its first three-game sweep of a conference opponent since the Hilltoppers took three straight, on the road, from Florida International in mid-March.

“It’s Sunday, now, and we’re only gonna hunt, as long as we’re hungry,” Rardin said. “That’s the way I look at it …”

Game Three of the series is set for Sunday at 1 p.m. Both Rardin and Kennesaw coach Ryan Coe said they’d look at their options, on a starting pitcher, heading into the game.

“That’s what we’ll be talking about, 30 minutes from now,” Rardin said with a smile.

Senior right-hander Gavin Perry gave the Hilltoppers six solid innings, allowing seven hits and four runs — only two of them earned — while recording six strikeouts without a walk.

Dawson Hall, the former standout at Bowling Green High School, took over at the start of the seventh and denied the Owls a scoring opportunity in his first inning on the mound. In the top of the eighth, however, Hall surrendered a towering solo home run, a blast to left-center field, off the bat of Kennesaw’s Jackson Chirello.

That trimmed the WKU lead to a 7-5, but the Hilltoppers would respond with a single run of their own in the bottom of the eighth.

Senior outfielder Parker Coley slapped a two-out single up the middle before moving into scoring position on a stolen base. WKU’s Cael Frost delivered an RBI single, a line drive to the opposite field, to bring Coley across the plate and push the Hilltoppers’ lead back to three runs.

“We got a couple stolen bases with two outs that allowed us to do some things, on offense,” Rardin said.

Hall took the mound, for the top of the ninth, before the Owls’ Trenton Lyons drew a leadoff walk.

Rardin immediately emerged from the WKU dugout to bring senior left-hander Zach Lyles out of the bullpen.

“Dawson Hall did a great job,” Rardin said. “Then, Lyles, all he does is go out there and pump strikes …”

The fourth-year WKU coach, who last year guided the Hilltoppers to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 19 years, was equally effusive about Gavin Perry, his starting pitcher, a sturdy 6-foot-5, 265-pound senior from Oceanside, California.

With a qualifier, of course.

“Gavin Perry could have gone out for the seventh, but he’d already thrown 93 pitches,” Rardin said. “And he had watched us leave AN ARMY of guys on the base paths.

“We finished with FOURTEEN hits …”

The Hilltoppers closed the game with 12 men left on base, half of them in scoring position.

Still, when it all came out in the wash, the Tops showed plenty of grit, even after they stumbled defensively.

Junior WKU outfielder/first baseman Lane Arroyos led the Hilltoppers with three hits, including a leadoff double off the center-field wall in the bottom of the third. Like Friday night’s opening game, WKU’s hard-fought victory that took nearly four hours to complete, the Hilltoppers scored in each of the first three innings.

Senior catcher Camden Ross, and the aforementioned Cael Frost and Parker Coley, all had two hits for the Hilltoppers. Frost delivered a pinch-hit RBI single in the sixth before his line-drive single brought Coley across the plate for the insurance run in the eighth.

The Hilltoppers still have Conference USA series remaining against MTSU, Dallas Baptist and last-place Delaware, before the C-USA Tournament unfolds on May 20 at Kennesaw State’s Mickey Dunn Stadium/Henssler Financial Field, along with one remaining non-conference game against Eastern Kentucky University.

“I still don’t know,” Rardin said as he walked off the field, “who’s going to start tomorrow …”