Building A Case: West Virginia

It’s a bit antithetical for coaches to feel good after losses. Yet, West Virginia head coach Randy Mazey came away feeling pretty positive about his team after its 7-4 defeat on Feb. 29. The reason? Who they lost to—the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“We went into that game—our bus broke down the night before, we got about three hours of sleep and they throw wood bats in our hands right before the game,“ Mazey said. “We’re facing a major league split-squad, and we played really, really well. Our guys stood in there and had great at-bats. That’s when I thought, ‘OK, this team has a chance to be really good.’ “

“You didn’t know how good UNLV (who the Mountaineers had played the previous weekend) was, but you know the big league team’s good. Even the guys that they bring in late in the game are still Double-A and Triple-A guys, and we had great at-bats up and down the team.”

That exhibition loss to the D-backs doesn’t count against WVU’s record of course, and the Mountaineers have backed up Mazey’s optimism in getting off to a 10-4 start through four weeks of non-conference play. Included in that mark is a three-game sweep of UNLV and, from this past weekend, a hard-fought series win against Old Dominion, which itself came in 10-2.

The ODU series figures to be West Virginia’s best showcase outside the Big 12, facing a program that was in regionals in 2014 and should contend in Conference USA—facts that weren’t lost on WVU’s players, whose jubilation after freshman Jimmy Galusky’s series-winning, walk-off hit in the 12th inning Saturday led them to dogpile between first and second base, a sight seldom seen in March.

MOUNTAINEERS WIN!!!

JIMMY GALUSKY!!#HailWV https://t.co/AASh627oNw

— WVU Baseball (@WVUBaseball) March 13, 2016

As of Tuesday morning, the Mountaineers had the second-best RPI in the Big 12 at No. 34 on WarrenNolan.com. West Virginia has been to regionals 11 times in its history but not since 1996—the longest drought the program’s ever had. Now in his fourth year in Morgantown, Mazey knows every step helps.

“This was huge,” he said of the ODU series. “We played really well at UNLV. But that early, you don’t know how good other teams are or how they’re going to fare. But they turned around and won a series against Ohio State this past weekend, so that’s going to help … When the (selection) committee looks back at the end of the year and sees a sweep at UNLV and a series win over Old Dominion, who I think is going to have a good year, I think those two series are going to show pretty well for us.”

The Mountaineers dive into the deep end this weekend, starting Big 12 play on the road at No. 8 Texas Christian—Mazey’s operative word for describing TCU was “scary.” Regardless of what happens in Fort Worth, the Mountaineers have set themselves up to be a factor in what appears to be a wide open rest of the Big 12 behind the Horned Frogs. Winning just one game this weekend would be a plus—a more feasible chance for WVU to make a mark comes two weeks later when No. 22 Oklahoma State visits Morgantown.

Getting over the hump and back to regionals won’t come without pitfalls. West Virginia has started as many as five freshmen in its lineup and three of its five leading hitters are freshmen—Kyle Gray (.324), Darius Hill (.317) and Galusky (.333). Despite their youth, Mountaineers rank second in the Big 12 in both team average (.299) and slugging percentage (.465), while their 13 homers in 14 games is tied for the most in the league.

“This team is capable of doing a lot of different things,” Mazey said. “I think we’re leading the Big 12 in home runs right now. But we’ve guys in the lineup that can run a little bit and handle the bat. It’s a pretty good mix. I think we’re capable of winning games in a bunch of different ways, and we’ve got some depth.”

Opposing Big 12 coaches came into the year with a healthy respect for West Virginia’s pitching, and the Mountaineers duly have one of the top 20 team ERAs in the country at 2.52. Still, Mazey believes his weekend starters—senior Ross Vance, junior Chad Donato and sophomore B.J. Myers—can give him deeper outings than what he’s seen so far. Donato, the Friday starter, has the best stuff in the group, but none of them are necessarily overwhelming—they all fit the same mold as competitors that can throw multiple pitches for strikes.

“We could literally interchange all three of our starters to pitch Friday-Saturday-Sunday,” Mazey said. “They’re all very capable of beating anybody on our schedule, but they’re not going to blow anybody away. They all have to execute pitches.”

Do that enough, and Mazey believes the Mountaineers absolutely can hear their name called on Selection Monday for the first time in 20 years.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt (this can be a tournament team),” he said. “Our guys are playing with confidence right now. We’ve got some pitching depth—guys with some good arms. As long as we keep it together. A young team, when things go wrong, they need to stay together. If this group stays together and stays positive no matter what happens—there’s going to be times where you lose two games in a row, or a freshman gets in a 0-for-13 slump—as long as they can manage the adversity, yeah, I definitely think this team’s very capable of playing in the postseason.”