HAYS, Kan. – The Colorado School of Mines Baseball team completed the four-game sweep of Fort Hays State on Monday with a 5-4 victory at Larks Park thanks to Taylor White's pinch-hit home run in the top of the ninth inning.
 
White's at-bat was his only action of the game which allowed him to finish 1-for-1 with a home run and two RBI. Alex Bumpus, Wayne Moeck and Adam Houghtaling joined White with long balls of their own. Luke Folsom and Brady Veltien helped fuel the offense with one double apiece while Veltien also scored a run. Keene Tanaka notched a base hit as well. The Orediggers' other three home runs were solo shots which accounted for the three remaining RBI.
 
Brayden Weyer served as the starting pitcher for Mines, but did not factor in the decision after 4.0 innings of two-run, six-hit work featuring six strikeouts. Marcus Lee and Rodney Gregg came on in relief. Lee struck out five batters through 2.2 innings. Zachary Kriethe (1-0) earned the win on the back end thanks to 2.1 innings of one-hit, shutout baseball. Kriethe used 30 pitches on 10 batters and recorded zero walks and zero strikeouts. Jacob Ensz (0-1) took the loss in relief for Fort Hays State.
 
Mines (4-0) only had seven hits in the game to hit .212 as a team on the day, but six of the seven hits were for extra bases including four home runs and two doubles which brought the Orediggers' slugging percentage to .636 as a squad. Fort Hays State (0-4) could not capitalize on three fielding errors by Mines despite out-hitting the visitors and earning two walks. The Tigers only had one extra-base hit while the Oredigger pitching staff fanned 11 in nine innings. Fort Hays State's staff only walked one and struck out six.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Unlike the first three games of the series, Monday's finale saw relatively sparse scoring that was evenly balanced. It was Mines striking first in the top of the third with Bumpus' leadoff home run on the first pitch he saw. Fort Hays State clapped back in the fourth by scoring two runs on four consecutive, two-out singles. But the Orediggers answered once again. This time, it was the bat of Moeck making noise with his one-out, first-pitch home run to left field. At 2-2, Mines had just four hits, but all of them were for extra bases as the visitors were hitting .200 but slugging .600 through six innings of baseball.
 
The bottom of the seventh inning brought about two additional two-out runs for the Tigers. They used an RBI single with the bases loaded to take a 4-2 lead, but Kriethe came on to limit the damage and earned the final out with a line drive to shortstop. In the very next inning, Houghtaling led off as a pinch hitter and immediately smacked a home run to right field – halving FHSU's advantage down to 4-3. Kriethe returned for a shutdown eighth frame, working three fly balls around one Fort Hays State single and set the table for Mines to complete the comeback.
 
Brady Veltien led off the top of the ninth and was hit by a pitch. Toby Scoles was slated to hit next, but Head Coach Robby Bales went pinch-hitter again. This time he chose White, whose only other appearance as an Oredigger was a pinch-hit, RBI-walk on Saturday. The transfer from NCAA Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater watched one pitch out of the zone for a ball before sending the next one to the opposite field in left and over the fence for the decisive, two-run home run. While the bottom of the ninth got dicey for the visitors with a two-out error and a hit batter, Danny McDermott finished it off by taking a ground ball off the chest at third base and then stepping on the bag for the game-winning fielder's choice.
 
NOTABLES
- With Head Coach Robby Bales at the helm, Mines is now 7-1 against Fort Hays State.
- The Orediggers are now 4-0 for the first time since 2015 when they defeated Panhandle State twice, Newman and Fort Hays State to start the season.
- For the series, Mines outscored FHSU by a margin of 31-12 while limiting the Tigers to just five hits for extra bases over 32 innings of baseball.
- Oredigger pitchers combined to strike out 41 Tiger batters in those same 32 innings. The staff exited the series touting a combined ERA of 3.38.
- Kriethe's win on the mound marks the second of his career and first since his true freshman season in 2020.
- Bumpus' home run was his second of the weekend and third of his career. He became the first Oredigger with multiple home runs in 2022.
- Houghtaling's long ball gave him his first home run in a Mines uniform and the third of his collegiate career after hitting two at San Jacinto Community College in Texas.
- Moeck now has two home runs in his career in Golden.
- In two appearances as an Oredigger, White is 1-for-1 with one home run, three RBI and a walk. He hit seven home runs in three seasons at UWW.
- Through four games in 2022, Mines boasts a total of nine home runs as a team. For comparison, the Orediggers hit 10 home runs in their first four games (at Angelo State) in 2019 when they set the program record for home runs in a season with 90.
- Coach Bales holds an overall record of 64-39 in his fourth season as the head coach at Mines.
 
WHAT'S NEXT
Mines' next series is a four-game set at Rogers State in Claremore, Okla., running Feb. 11-13. Live stats and pay-per-view video will be offered at www.minesathletics.com.
 
Fans can follow Mines baseball on Twitter at @OrediggersBSB. They can also follow all of Mines Athletics on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @MinesAthletics, and online at www.minesathletics.com.