After West Virginia baseball was eliminated from the Big 12 Tournament on Thursday, head coach Randy Mazey seemed to take the glass half full approach when talking about his team’s performance and what the future holds.
Mazey discussed the five-game losing streak, the interference call, and how much he needed Ben Hampton and JJ Wetherholt to play well.
On Losing Five Straight
While a Morgantown Regional seems out of the picture for the time being, Mazey said it’s unfortunate of the timing of the losing streak, and credited his team for the 39 wins they had accumulated prior to last weekend.
“I think you had us sixth in the nation at one point and then you saw us play. We dang sure last weekend didn’t look like a top-ten team in the nation,” Mazey said. “We needed to come here and play well because we hadn’t been playing well. I think going into this past weekend, we hadn’t lost three games in a row this year or last year… so that happens. A little bit frustrating about all we had to do was win one game, that’s the kiss of death when you think that way.”
Mazey added on the timing of getting swept by Texas didn’t help and that all he wanted was his team to play good baseball in Arlington this week, which they did in their 3-2 loss to Oklahoma State.
“Had TCU swept us in the middle of the year and we swept Texas at the end to become the champs, people would look at us a a lot differently. We just needed to come here and play a good game.
That’s the first time in a postgame huddle I’ve stood there and talked to my team and said ‘hey, we’re going to have practice next week.’ If they don’t let the Big 12 champs in the postseason, you’re going to have to be talking to me after that through a glass partition probably, because that would be blasphemous not to put the Big 12 champs in the postseason. I feel really confident that we’re going to be playing next week and I’ve never told my team that before in the postgame huddle because we’ve never won this tournament.”
On the interference call in the eighth inning
Runner interference was called on WVU’s Landon Wallace after he put a bunt down, giving the Mountaineers the first out of the inning as well as putting a runner back to first rather than runners on first and second.
“I’d have to go back and look at it. They explained it the way they explained it and I don’t agree with it and still don’t. I’ll go back and look at it. That call has gone against us multiple times this year. You have to run in a particular area and he said our guy wasn’t which is correct but there’s another part to that play that he actually has to affect the throw which I’d have to go back and watch to see if that happened.”
On Hampton finding his groove
Ben Hampton didn’t make it out of the first inning against Texas over the weekend, and he posted six strong innings against Oklahoma State, and the only two runs he allowed came in the first inning. Mazey said that’s something they needed from him this week and that helps him get on track before postseason play.
“That may have been the biggest thing that came out of today is that we needed Ben to pitch well today and he did. And that’s really encouraging moving forward. That’s one of the things we needed to happen once we came down here. And I feel really good about the way he pitched and our at-bats against two guys you’re probably going to be watching in the big leagues in the next three-four-five years.
I think today’s game if you just take out the result will really help us going into next week because you’re not going to see better pitching than that and you’re probably not going to see a better offense than that. So, I thought we played a really, really, good clean game.”
On Wetherholt’s mini-resurgence
It is no secret WVU second baseman and Big 12 Player of the Year JJ Wetherholt had been struggling coming into Thursday’s game. Wetherholt was 2-for-17 over the previous four games, but he turned that around with two hits, and got on base all five times on Thursday.
“JJ had a good game, got a couple hits today and was on base all day long and that’s a really good sign for us. The same way it’s a good sign when LeBron scores a lot of points for the Lakers, when JJ’s on base, that gives us a real chance to win. Because when he gets on base, his offense is contagious with the rest of the team. When he hits, most of us have really good at-bats. Good to get him back on track.”
On talking with Josh Holliday
Mazey was asked about a conversation he had with Oklahoma State head coach Josh Holliday and what Holliday said to Mazey about his team.
“He said our team is as built to win a regional. And I asked him if he was on the selection committee and if he knew where we were going. I think we are good [enough to win a regional]. If we get good starts like we did all year, we’re very capable on offense.”
Mazey and the Mountaineers find out their fate on Monday at noon in the NCAA Tournament Selection Show on ESPN2.
