Hilltoppers Dismantle Georgia State, Clinch 5 Seed

Teams have games when they are on, and then other nights when they are insane. For WKU’s 10-1 win over Georgia State last night, it was the latter.

The Hilltoppers baseball squad played host to the Panthers yesterday evening, and it wasn’t even a contest. WKU jumped out early by scoring two runs in the first after Cody Wofford and Ryan Church both crossed home plate. The offense would idle from that point until the 5th, until things really kicked into gear.

The Panthers narrowed in as they closed the WKU lead down to 2-1 after the top of the 5th, however the Hilltopper got going, as they scored four runs off of six hits. Three consecutive singles from Wofford, Scott Wilcox, and Church would set the Tops with the bases loaded as Anderson Miller stepped up to the plate. Miller sent one runner across the plate, still leaving the bases load. Regan Flaherty then had 2 RBI’s of his own, while Ryan Messex topped off the inning sending Miller across home plate, thus extending the lead to 6-1.

WKU would extend off of the hot bats in the 5th by scoring at least one runner in their final 3 innings played, leaving the final score standing at 10-1.

The Hilltopper offense was lead by Flaherty as he had two hits in four at bats, and ended up with four RBI. Miller had himself a night as well, recording three hits and scoring a run in five a bats and also tacking on a trio of RBI. Both Church and Wilcox stepped across home plate three times on the evening, and Wofford added two runs of his own.

Senior Justin Hageman would earn another quality start, his 8th of the year, while also picking up the win for the evening. Hageman pitched 6.2 innings and only allowed one run on seven hits, and also striking out six foes at the plate for his 20th career win; notching him as one of only eight pitchers in WKU history to reach the 20 win mark. Just one more thing, Hageman earned these stats against a team that averages 6.5 runs per outing.

With the win last night, WKU clinched the number five seed in next week’s Sun Belt Conference Tournament. For the Panthers, they fall below the cutoff line, and are now on the outside looking in to make the tourney. They’ll need to take the final two games of the series, as well as some help from around the conference, to play past this weekend.

The Tops look to clinch the series this evening at 6 behind Josh Bartley.