West Virginia baseball knows they are good. Even with that, they are playing like they are not falling into the trap of being pleased with past results, but rather treating themselves as the underdog.
Following West Virginia’s 10-0 win over rival Pittsburgh on Wednesday, head coach Randy Mazey couldn’t help but recognize the atmosphere. Over 4,000 people showed up on a cold and wet night in Morgantown — setting the regular season attendance record. With the bigger crowds, higher rankings — including being ranked 12th in the latest polls — , and postseason projections could come a sense of complacency. For West Virginia, they are used to being treated as lesser than their opponent, and they are using that to their advantage.
“Over confidence is the number one reason you get complacent. We’re not going to do that; we’re going to go into every game like we’re the underdog,” West Virginia head coach Randy Mazey said after WVU’s 7-4 win over TCU on Apr. 22.
With three weeks to go in the regular season, WVU finds themselves at the top of the Big 12 standings and inching closer to being ranked as one of the top ten teams in the country. That is a distant way away from being picked to finish sixth in the Big 12 at the beginning of the season.
The Mountaineers have found their success both on the mound and at the plate. Over WVU’s past six games, the offense has scored a combined 74 runs. At the same time, over the same span, WVU’s pitching staff has had a 3.06 ERA.
“You don’t want to play according to results, but you can’t ignore results. It’s a result-oriented game and since you can’t ignore it, we talk about it,” Mazey said on Wednesday.
West Virginia’s resume is continuing to get stronger by the day. WVU is currently 15th in the country in RPI — which is the computer rankings system used during the tournament selection process.
“We talk about RPI all the time and the importance of the process, not the importance of the result,” Mazey said. “Because of the result, you have to focus more on every single pitch of every at bat. We don’t act like it doesn’t exist, but we use it to our advantage too.”
The good times are rolling right now as WVU has the longest active win streak in college baseball. JJ Wetherholt said though, the rankings don’t matter now, they matter a month from now.
“I think we do a great job of knowing the rankings right now don’t really mean anything,” Wetherholt said. “I know last year we were ranked 18 or something throughout the season, we didn’t even make the regional, so this type of stuff doesn’t matter.”
Wetherholt and his teammates have been referring to the rankings as ‘poison’ and are trying to not drink it. Braden Barry said WVU sees the rankings each week but are reminded in their team group chat, “don’t drink the poison,” Barry said.
With three weekends left in the regular season, WVU is in the driver’s seat of the Big 12. WVU leads the conference by 1.5 games but have played three less games than all other conference members.
“It’s cool, yeah, we get ranked, we’re moving up the charts that awesome, but it doesn’t matter if we don’t play well,” Wetherholt said. “So, we kind of know this game matters, we have to take this game as serious as anything and if we don’t win these next games this season doesn’t mean anything. We have to keep playing well.”
Playing in the postseason is what WVU is trying to do for the first time since 2019 — ironically the last time WVU hosted a regional. West Virginia is turning out record crowds as they move themselves more into the national conversation.
Mazey loves the atmosphere the West Virginia faithful have brought for his group and feels this will only help them come tournament time.
“I thought when we hosted a regional in 2019, I thought that rattled our kids as much as it did the other teams because our kids know what’s at stake for this entire community, this entire state,” Mazey said.
West Virginia has six home games remaining and according to Mazey, the only tickets left are standing room only. The thousands of people who show up to watch the Mountaineers play are potentially getting them ready for the chaotic environment that comes with hosting a regional.
“Our kids are getting used to that now and that’s a huge advantage, getting used to playing in atmospheres like that,” Mazey added. “We’re getting used to that atmosphere as players and now they’re not in la la land. They’re used to it and experienced it and can be calm in spite of that.”
Photo by Aaron Parker, Blue Gold Sports
