Kansas Secures Series with 8-5 Victory at No. 14 West Virginia

Friday, May 16

Morgantown, W.Va.

5:30 p.m. CT

University of Kansas

#14 West Virginia

Kansas Secures Series with 8-5 Victory at No. 14 West Virginia

5/16/2025 10:45:00 PM | Baseball

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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Kansas baseball secured a series win and its 41st overall win of the season with an 8-5 victory against No. 14 West Virginia on Friday evening at Wagener Field at Kendrick Family Ballpark. The 41 wins are the third most in a season in school history in only the third season under head coach Dan Fitzgerald.

Kansas improved its record to 41-14 this season and 19-10 in Big 12 play. The 41 wins trail only 43 wins in 2006 and 45 wins in 1993 for the most in school history. The Jayhawks have now won seven conference series for the first time in program history. Kansas has also won seven consecutive games on the road. The 19 conference wins and 19 road wins are both already school records.

Cooper Moore pitched eight strong innings to match his career high for innings pitched and held West Virginia to three runs for his seventh win of the season and sixth quality start of the year. Moore has gone eight innings in back-to-back starts for the first time in his career. Offensively, Brady Ballinger hit his 15th home run of the season on Friday night.

"I'm super proud of how far we've come in year three," Fitzgerald said. "I think it's such a great picture of how hard our staff has worked and the incredible job they've done in recruiting and development. Then ultimately, it's the effort and talent of the players and just their buy in to execute and do it at a really, really high level. I'm proud of where we're at. It's been a complete effort from the administration down and I'm excited that we get to continue to play more baseball."

HOW IT HAPPENED
• Kansas scored a first inning run for the second straight day. After a leadoff double by Ballinger, Dariel Osoria drove him in with a sacrifice fly to make it 1-0.
• West Virginia (40-12, 19-8 Big 12) evened up the game in the bottom of the first as Gavin Kelly came in to score on a double play to bring the score to 1-1.
• The Mountaineers took the lead in the bottom of the third inning on a solo home run by Kyle West. The solo blast gave West Virginia a 2-1 advantage at the end of three innings.
• The Jayhawks put up a crooked number in each of the next two innings with five runs in the fourth and two runs in the fifth.
• Michael Brooks drove in the first run of the fourth inning with an RBI double. Derek Cerda would come in and score on a double play for the second run of the inning. Two batters later, Ballinger came up with two outs and two runners on and hit an opposite field three-run homer to flip the lead to 6-2 in the Jayhawks favor.
• In the fifth, Kansas added two more runs with the first coming on a hustle play by Brady Counsell to score from second base on a wild pitch. Chase Diggins brought home the other run with a sacrifice fly. That gave Kansas a 8-2 lead.
• West Virginia was able to get one run in the eighth inning on an RBI single by Ben Lumsden to make it an 8-3 game.
• The Mountaineers added two more runs in the ninth inning on a home run by Ellis Garcia to wrap up the scoring at 8-5.

PITCHERS OF RECORD
Win: Cooper Moore (7-1)
Final line: 8.0 IP, 10 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 8 SO
Loss: Ben McDougal (1-1)
Final line: 2.2 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 2 SO

SOCIAL POST OF THE GAME

HOW WE FEELIN'?! pic.twitter.com/0e8gtHmlyg
— Kansas Baseball (@KUBaseball) May 16, 2025

QUOTABLES & NOTABLES
"Great effort by Cooper and once again he got us super deep into a game. He was so efficient and his stuff was so good. Handed it over to Breck and that's back-to-back nights for Breck where he was just electric. Great persistent offense. I thought we did a really nice job of staying with it and being opportunistic when we had the chances. Great team effort and really proud of that one." – Head Coach Dan Fitzgerald

"I feel like I had all my pitches today and that's one of the best feelings as a pitcher. I may have given up a few hits and a home run, but I battled through it and competed with every single pitch and gave it all I had." – Cooper Moore

"We're very confident in the dugout right now. We know that as long as we put together our best at-bats and best swings there's not a lot of teams that can outhit us." – Brady Ballinger

• Kansas improved to 41-14 this season and 19-10 in conference play. The 41 wins are the third most in a season in program history behind 43 wins in 2006 and 45 wins in 1993.
• Kansas has its most wins ever in a regular season in school history.
• Kansas has its most conference wins in a season in program history.
• Kansas has won seven Big 12 series in a season for the first time in program history.
• Kansas has a school-record 19 road wins this season.
• Kansas has won seven consecutive games on the road for the second time this season (Feb. 14-23). The program record for consecutive wins on the road is eight, set in 1978 and 1981.
• Kansas has 21 road/neutral wins this season, which is the most since 2014 when the Jayhawks had a school record 23 wins away from Lawrence.
• Kansas has a program-record 96 home runs this year. The Jayhawks have hit a home run in 13 consecutive games.
• Moore earned his seventh win of the season and is now 7-1 on the year. He recorded his sixth quality start of the season. Moore has gone eight innings in back-to-back starts for the first time in his career. Seven of Moore's last eight starts have been at least 6.0 IP and seven of his last 10 starts have been at least 7.0 IP.
• Ballinger hit his 15th home run of the season. He finished with two hits, two runs and three RBIs.

UP NEXT
Kansas and West Virginia will play the regular season finale on Saturday afternoon. First pitch is scheduled for 12 p.m. CT and will be broadcast on ESPN+.