CHARLESTON, W. Va. – The Frostburg State Baseball team used a couple of key extra base hits and a dominant pitching performance to defeat West Virginia State 4-0 in their opening game of the MEC Baseball Championship, presented by YES! Chevrolet and YES! Ford.
 
After a quick first inning with neither side registering much offense, WVSU was the first to threaten in the top of the second. William Glick and Nathan Paulsen drew back-to-back one-out walks, but sophomore starter Jacob Stretch got the next two batters swinging on strikeouts to end the threat. FSU also saw a chance to score taken away in the bottom half of the frame, as sophomore Mikey Guy led off with a ground-rule double, but was thrown out trying to advance to third on a grounder off the bat of senior Trevor Jones, followed by a fly out and strikeout to end the inning.
 
Stretch again got out of trouble in the top of the third, working a pair of pop-ups after a one-out double to keep the Yellow Jackets off the board. Both sides went quietly in the bottom of the third and top of the fourth, then it appeared the Bobcats again would be forced to wait for the first run of the game after the first two batters went down in the bottom of the fourth. Guy had other ideas, drawing a four-pitch walk, followed by Jones lacing a single to right and sophomore Cy Probst earning the second free base of the half inning to load the bases. Sophomore shortstop Christian Shertzer came up clutch and roped a ball into left-center, sprinting into third on a bases-clearing triple to break the game open 3-0.
 
In the top of the fifth, West Virginia State again threatened with runners on base, hitting a pair of singles, but still couldn't get them home as Stretch forced Tyler Overaitis to fly out for the third out. With his final inning of work, Stretch capped off an outstanding performance, helped out by his defense after hitting the second batter of the frame. On a long fly out to left, junior Stafford Allison rifled the ball into Shertzer, who relayed to Steen at second, applying the tag to get the runner tagging up from first. Stretch ended his evening with six innings of shutout ball, allowing three hits and three walks while striking out six.
 
Junior Ethan Kiple continued his historic season in the bottom of the sixth, cranking a no-doubter out of the stadium, his 19^th homer of the season, for an insurance run at 4-0. Frostburg turned to sophomore Cael Huyer as the first reliever out of the pen, as the southpaw tossed an easy top of the seventh outside of a one-out single, then another brilliant inning in the eighth, forcing WVSU three-up and three-down.
 
Without any Bobcat offense through the seventh and eighth innings, Head Coach Anthony Williams turned to Kiple to close things out in the top of the ninth. The star reliever showed why he's one of the top two-way players in the league, sitting the Yellow Jackets down in order to seal the 4-0 win and start FSU's tournament run on the winning foot.
 
Kiple, Shertzer, and Jones all recorded multi-hit days, with the former two accounting for all four of the Bobcat runs batted in. The trio of Stretch, Huyer, and Kiple were simply untouchable on the mound, combining for the full nine-inning shutout, allowing four hits while striking out nine, as the defense did their part as well, not making an error.
 
With the win, Frostburg improves to 31-18 on the year, while West Virginia State falls to 28-21. FSU awaits tomorrow's result between Concord and Wheeling, as the Bobcats will face the winner of that game on Friday, May 12 at 2 p.m. Information and updates will be posted at frostburgsports.com.