Oklahoma State's Josh Holliday explains Cowboys' offensive approach vs. West Virginia

Nursing a one-run lead a little more than halfway through a Big 12 Tournament elimination game on Thursday afternoon, Oklahoma State head coach Josh Holliday wanted a few more runs. But for the past few innings, the Cowboys had struggled to get anything going.

Despite shellacking a couple of balls to the warning track of Globe Life Field, the West Virginia defense kept coming up big. In particular, centerfielder Braden Barry foiled the Oklahoma State offense.

“Fastest player on the field in the deepest part of the park. I think we’ve hit about five balls that probably, if we’re playing in a typical venue, they’re homers. But we’re playing here and they’re doing a great job of defending the long fly ball. So we maybe need to lower the ball a little bit, try to score in some different fashions. But it’s kind of hard to tell the guys to quit hitting it hard,” Holliday said with a chuckle during an in-game interview.

As Holliday spoke to the broadcast crew during the bottom of the fifth inning, his Cowboys held a 2-1 lead — soon to be erased. A sacrifice fly and a groundout in the bottom of the first inning plated a pair of runs before the Mountaineers responded with a run in the top of the second inning.

From that point onward, the pitchers settled and the bats went quiet.

Holliday gave some credit to West Virginia pitcher Ben Hampton, who was taming a usually potent offense.

“In all honesty, he’s a good pitcher. We knew that, but we’re hitting the ball hard. And when you get to where you can hit it hard and aim it, then you belong at a different level,” Holliday said.

And unfortunately for Holliday, West Virginia plated a tying run in the top of the sixth inning.

Oklahoma State started Nolan McLean, normally a reliever, on the mound on Thursday. Holliday explained that it was in preparation for McLean to start come the NCAA tournament regionals next weekend.

“For us, it’s been to try to get the ability to start a game underneath him. We’ve stretched him out to 60, 75 pitches a few times. And we need to kind of get him to that level so that he continues to build the endurance and the mound time so that starting a game is an option for us next week in a regional as we keep trying to put our pitch plan together and figure out what gives us the best chance to advance. That’s where we’re at at this point in the year,” Holliday said.

But as McLean got toward the 80 pitch landmark, the Mountaineers managed to string together some hits and tie the game. McLean did, however, manage to pitch out of the jam with the score knotted at two. At that point, his day was done on the mound.

“He’s our best bet today to go out there and give us a chance to win,” Holliday said. “That’s kind of the approach, but we won’t ride him out. We’ll take him to where we feel like it’s the right limit and then we’ll turn it over to somebody else.”