BECKLEY, W. Va. -- Playing on the neutral turf of Epling Stadium, the University of Pikeville baseball team used a pair of triples and six batters being hit by a pitch to push past West Virginia Tech 13-5 on Tuesday night.

The win, which pushes UPIKE one game over .500 at 5-4, was hard fought with two early lead changes and the Bears only outhitting the Golden Bears 9-8. But control issues on the mound haunted Tech all game long as its eight pitchers who appeared combined for 10 walks and the six plunked batters.

After falling behind 1-0 in the first inning on a passed ball, UPIKE took its first lead in the second on Jacob Alverado's two-run triple. Brendan Halstrom, who would go on to hit an RBI triple of his own in the seventh, scored the tying run and Matt Peterson hustled home for the go-ahead score.

The Golden Bears (1-7) would tie the game twice from there, at 2-2 in the bottom of the second and again at 3-3 in the fourth.

It wasn't until Peterson hit a single to left field deep enough to score two runs that UPIKE went ahead for good. That hit made it 5-3 and by the end of the fifth frame the Bears had put 10 runs on the board to lead 10-3 heading into the bottom of the inning. Alverado, Kase Mattingly and Alec Barba all hit run-scoring singles in the inning and Jorge Perez drew a bases-loaded walk.

Tech got two runs back in the bottom of the fifth, but that would do it for the rest of the night. UPIKE added some insurance with another bases-loaded walk, a run scored on a groundout and Halstrom's triple to right center in the ninth inning.

Barba, Peterson and Alverado led UPIKE at the plate with two hits each and Dalton Dahley (1-3) earned his first win of the season after allowing three runs on on five hits with three strikeouts in three innings of work. Dahley, and the rest of the staff, didn't allow an extra-base hit for Tech all game long.

UP NEXT

Grace (Ind.) visits UPIKE at Noon ET on Friday for a doubleheader at Johnnie LeMaster Field.

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