Top seeded West Virginia beat ninth-seed Cincinnati 10-3 in the Big XII Tournament quarterfinals on Thursday to earn a berth in the semifinals versus Arizona on Friday. Arizona beat BYU 4-1 on Thursday morning to earn their berth in the Big XII Tournament semifinals.
Cincinnati held a 1-0 lead they took in the top of the first until West Virginia scored five runs in the bottom of the fourth inning. A solo home run by Kyle West tied the game at one. A single by Spencer Barnett scored Jace Rhinehart to give West Virginia the permanent lead at 2-1.
An infield single by Grant Hussey scored Logan Sauve to extend the West Virginia lead to 3-1. West Virginia extended the lead with a sacrifice fly and bases-loaded walk to 5-1 after four innings. Cincinnati cut the lead to 5-3 with a run scoring on a double play and a HR by Jack Natili in the top of the fifth inning.
A pair of singles in the sixth inning drove in three runs to regain a commanding lead for West Virginia at 8-3. A sacrifice fly and a groundout in the seventh closed the scoring as West Virginia went on to a 10-3 win. The bottom third of the order for West Virginia had five hits in nine at-bats with five runs scored and four runs batted in.
West Virginia drew eight walks off of Cincinnati pitching to match their hit total on Thursday. Griffin Kirn threw a 129-pitch complete game for West Virginia, allowing the three earned runs on eight hits with one walk, four hit batters and nine strikeouts.
Arizona won two out of three games at West Virginia in March. The Wildcats won game one 6-4 in 16 innings while striking out 29 Mountaineer batters. West Virginia won 11-3 in game two and Arizona took the decisive contest 11-4. Arizona and West Virginia will play at 2 PM Mountain Standard Time on Friday at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.