It’s only fitting that in a historic season for the WVU baseball team, there was another piece of history made by a player during the year. With 37 total career home runs, Grant Hussey, a West Virginia native, broke the record for most career home runs with ‘Mountaineers’ across his chest.
Coming into Morgantown from Parkersburg, Hussey was a key piece of the team his freshman year, starting in every game that season and .244 and 11 home runs. He quickly became one of the many bright spots for Randy Mazey in continuing to move the program forward.
Flashforward to his sophomore season, Hussey continued to shine and played a major role in the Mountaineer’s share of the regular season Big 12 title. He added 14 more home runs to his total that season while batting .254 and driving in 46 runs.
While the numbers may have been down for Hussey this past season, his legacy only grew. He finished the year with a career low in batting average at .242 but impacted play in other areas like he never had before.
Only one error in the field was a new low for the first baseman who had 12 total in his first two seasons. He also finished the year with seven total stolen bases, crushing his record of one stolen base back in his freshman year.
Hussey entered the season with 25 home runs, putting him 10 away from tying the WVU career record with Tim McCabe who set the mark at 35 in 2003 and Jedd Gyorko who tied the record in 2010.
Three home runs in the team’s first six games for Hussey had fans believing the record could be broken this season. Slowly but surely, Hussey worked his way to being two deep shots away from tying the all-time record with still 21 games left in the regular season.
However, a nine game slump without a home run started to put Hussey on a bit of a time crunch if he wanted to break the record in his junior season. He finally broke the slump on the Sunday of the Baylor series with a home run to put him one away from tying the record.
The next game for the team would be against PItt in PNC Park. The record never made it out of the ballpark.
Hussey would hit a three-run home run to tie the record in the first inning of the game and would follow it up with a two-run shot into right field to put him in sole possession of WVU’s all-time career home run leader.
Against TCU in the final series of the season, Hussey would hit his final home run of the year to push the record up to 37 entering his senior year.
On the year, the Parkersburg native would finish with a .242 average including 12 home runs, his first career triple, seven stolen bases, and 37 rbi.
Breaking the record in his junior season is impressive enough, but it now has fans wondering should Hussey return for his senior season, just how many home runs can the kid from West Virginia hit.
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