Never needed a title like that for a baseball game, but West Virginia’s first game (ever, in the most legitimate polls) as a ranked team was a success. Marshall hasn’t beaten the Mountaineers the past few years, but Marshall has given the Mountaineers periodic problems. This one — in a pro park in Charleston, no less — was set up for trouble, but WVU navigated and won.

Kade Strowd, who was the first Sunday starter following the season-ending injury to Conner Dotson, handled the first four innings Tuesday. This means Alek Manoah remains your new Sunday starter. WVU needed two relievers. One walked the only batter he faced, but Riley Troutt finished the game and got the win.

Marshall gave the Mountaineers all they could handle for most of the game. The Thundering Herd (18-18) threatened to overcome an early deficit in the fifth inning when it was able to get WVU in a jam after a handful of walks to open the inning.

In the bottom of the fifth, West Virginia had to go to three different pitchers within the first three batters of the inning. Marshall took advantage of that by scoring a couple of runs to get back within one of the Mountaineers before WVU freshman Riley Troutt was able to get out of the jam with the lead still intact.

Troutt continued to throw quality innings out of the bullpen for the Mountaineers after getting out of that fifth-inning trouble. Despite throwing just 59 pitches up to this point in the season, Troutt threw 69 on Tuesday night — pitching the final four innings, allowing no runs on four hits while striking out four to pick up his first career victory.

“That’s more pitches than he’s thrown this whole season, but his stuff didn’t back off at all and he was still fresh and throwing well,” Mazey said. “He wanted to go back out there, and that was exactly what we needed.”

WVU’s RPI remains at No. 8, and the strength of schedule is No. 5. Those numbers will be challenged here and there the rest of the way, beginning with the weekend series at Kansas State, but the Mountaineers also have three games remaining against Oklahoma, Texas Tech and at Texas as well as a useful game against Pitt. This part has not changed: The rest is up to WVU.