Ft. Worth, TX – West Virginia senior Reed Chumley went 2-4 at the plate with a home run and raked in four RBIs to guide the Mountaineers (33-20, 19-11) to a series decisive game three win over the TCU Horned Frogs (31-19, 14-16) Sunday evening 6-5.

West Virginia jumped out to an early advantage in the top of the first inning when sophomore Sam White was beaned by the 1-2 pitch, then back-to-back two-out RBI doubles from Reed Chumley and Grant Hussey gave the Mountaineers a 2-0 lead.

TCU loaded the bases in the third, and placed a runner in scoring position in the fifth but left-hander Tyler Switalski came out of both jams unscathed. The junior tossed five scoreless innings, allowed four hits, and struck out two.

The Horned Frogs got on the board in the sixth after redshirt senior Kurtis Byrne reached after a slow ground ball to reliever Maxx Yehl threw high and wide of first baseman Grant Hussey, allowing Byrne to take second. A wild pitch gave Byrne third before a check swing from freshman Chase Brunson resulted in a sacrifice RBI back to Yehl to cut the WVU lead in half 2-1.

West Virginia sophomore reliever Carson Estridge took the mound in the seventh with two outs and the bases loaded and on the 1-1 pitch, Byrne flied out in foul territory in right field to get out of the inning.

The Mountaineers broke the game in the eighth. Sophomore Benjamin Lumsden ripped a leadoff double to left field. Sophomore Logan Sauve took first with a one-out walk. TCU head coach Kirk Saarloos opted to load the bases after intentionally walking junior JJ Wetherhold. Sophomore Sam White hit an RBI sacrifice fly to centerfield. Then, Chumley lifted the 1-0 pitch well over the left field wall for a three-run home run to give WVU a 6-1 lead.

Cole Estridge loaded the bases in the eighth before head coach Randy Mazey called in senior Hambleton Oliver. Tolle came in to pinch-hit and flied out to left field for a sacrifice RBI and that’s all the Mountaineers relinquished to hold onto a 6-2 advantage.

In the bottom of the ninth, TCU loaded the bases after a leadoff single, a walk and a one single to set up a two-RBI double from freshman Chase Brunson to cut the lead to two, 6-4. Mazey turned the game to Joseph Fredericks. The freshman walked the bases loaded and Mazey, again, went to his bullpen.

Sophomore right-hander Robby Porco took the mound and with the count full, Brunson lined an RBI double and, on the play, senior Peyton Chatagnier was caught in a run down and tagged out at the plate.

Right-handed Luke Lyman came into the game, making his second appearance of the series and his fifth of the season. The sophomore ended the game with three-straight pitches for the strikeout as the Mountaineers held on for the 6-5 decision.

GREEN BANK, W.Va. — A renowned paranormal investigator says West Virginia has a remarkable association with UFO activity because of its role in the search for extraterrestrial life and because it was the location of many early alleged UFO encounters.

Dave Spinks, perhaps best known for his appearances on the Travel Channel, the History Channel, and Destination America, says you can’t beat the Mountain State when it comes to UFO lore.

“Two of the earliest and most famous encounters in the U.S. were reported here,” Spinks says, referring to legendary encounters involving Mothman and the Flatwoods Monster.

“But it was here, too, at Green Bank Observatory that Frank Drake established the first telescopes used in the SETI program—the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.”

“Here he met with Carl Sagan,” Spinks said, referring to the collaboration with scientists who met with the proponent of the Drake Equation, an argument used to speculate about the possibilities of intelligent life off the planet.

Spinks began to collect notes about encounters with UFOs and the paranormal in the 1990s. However, his inspiration came from his youth spent in the hills near Flatwoods, the site of one of the state’s first encounters.

In 1952, a group of Flatwoods residents reported seeing what they believed was a spacecraft crashing in the hills south of the town. On investigation, they encountered its apparent occupant, a super-human, the Flatwoods Monster, a being that chased them from the alleged crash site.

Spinks grew up nearby near Birch River and some of the members of his family had attended school with some of the witnesses from Flatwoods. “That’s what started me thinking.”

Spinks also heard tales of Mothman, a winged creature said to haunt the Ohio Valley near Point Pleasant in the 1960s, during which West Virginians frequently watched the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse, which some claim to have done.

He left law enforcement in 2011 and became a full-time paranormal investigator—one of the field’s most noticeable, appearing in nationally televised shows and in thousands of news articles and podcasts.

Spinks says he’s been offered his own television programs but has so far declined the offers as he finds the genre apt to veer from honesty for the sake of production values.

“I like to present a more gritty approach to investigating these tales,” Spinks says.

“Essentially, I have three questions I wish to answer. These are what drive me. What happens when we die? Are there unknown creatures walking among us? And are we alone in the universe?”

As well as speaking, authoring books, and appearing on television and in videos, Spinks also recently purchased an allegedly haunted house, Willows Weep, in Cayuga, Ind., which he uses as a laboratory for investigation.

For more information on Spinks and his work, visit Dave Spinks Paranormal Investigator.

A pre-industrial night’s sky lingers over remote West Virginia

Longing for a life far from city lights? You could hardly do better than to move to West Virginia. Sparsely populated, the state is part of a region of extremely low light — ironically located near the center of the eastern U.S., one of the most lighted regions in the world.

The night in some parts of West Virginia is so star-spangled that it may seem pre-industrial, according to astronomer David Buhrman, who tours the region with telescopes, leading educational programs and advocating for the value of starlight. Read the full story here.

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