Mountaineers Duplicating History With Third Straight NCAA Bid

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University baseball team has bases on its weight room wall depicting the number of all-time NCAA Tournament appearances.

Among those is a sliver that includes the consecutive years of 1962, 1963 and 1964, representing the only time in school history the Mountaineers have made the NCAA Tournament three years in a row.

That is until now.

This year, West Virginia will be making its third straight tournament appearance for the first time in 61 years.

Let that sink in for a minute!

For all the Johnny-come-latelies out there bummed out about the team’s 4-9 record since April 30, think back to 2016 when WVU hadn’t been to a regional since Bill Clinton was president.

It was 21 years between NCAA trips until coach Randy Mazey finally broke the seal in 2017. 

Trust me, there were lots and lots of lean years in between. I know – I’ve been around here for all of them!

Now, in the span of 24 months, West Virginia has won a share of a Big 12 regular season title, finished ranked in the coaches’ poll, advanced to a NCAA Tournament Super Regional, captured its first-ever outright Big 12 championship, had the best record in college baseball in late April, spent most of this season in the national rankings and already owns the most wins in school history with 41.

When you consider what this team has accomplished over the last three years, it truly is remarkable.

Of course, a lot of praise needs to be showered on Mazey, the architect of the program’s resurgence. He was at the tournament watch party at The GOAT Country Roads Pub in Suncrest Town Centre earlier today.

Baseball people have known Mazey for years, but it took him a while before regular West Virginians really familiarized themselves with him. Today, Mazey and his wife, Amanda, can’t go anywhere in the Mountain State without being noticed.

Longtime WVU baseball administrator Matt Wells has been intimately involved in the team’s success over the last eight years and his fingerprints on the program have gone mostly overlooked.

Director of Athletics Wren Baker, among those observing today’s watch party and who understands how to run a successful athletics program, has opted to keep Matt in his current role.

It’s not an accident that Mountaineer baseball is continuing to thrive.

WVU benefactors Ken Kendrick and former pitcher Rick Wagener, among others, have helped turned Wagener Field at Kendrick Family Ballpark into one of college baseball’s best venues. 

Their involvement must be acknowledged as well.

As they say, it takes a village.

Indeed, baseball matters here.

That wasn’t something that could be said 13 years ago when one of the options former director of athletics Oliver Luck considered was dropping the program.

I know that to be the case because he told me so.

But Luck assembled a group of knowledgeable baseball people that included Arizona Diamondbacks owner Kendrick and experts within his organization. They encouraged him to hire Mazey to coach the team, and then he convinced the West Virginia Legislature to pass a TIF that not only funded a ballpark but has completely transformed a significant portion of Morgantown near Interstate 79.

Now, the successful path that Luck and Co. embarked upon back in 2012 is continuing today with coach Steve Sabins.

Unprecedented crowds showed up at Kendrick Family Ballpark this year and a record-smashing 9,639 were at Charleston’s GoMart Ballpark earlier this year to take in a college baseball game between West Virginia and Marshall.

It’s probably the most people to ever watch a collegiate or professional baseball game in the state’s history!

Keep in mind, those people were there either to see the nationally ranked Mountaineers or to observe Marshall upset the nationally ranked Mountaineers, not the other way around!

That’s a little bit of recent history as you begin to peruse this year’s NCAA Tournament bracket, which includes second-seeded West Virginia’s opening-round game against third-seeded Kentucky in the Clemson Regional on Friday.

“It’s been 61 years since we’ve made back-to-back-to-back regionals, so it’s an honor to be the leader of the program when this happens,” Sabins said earlier today.

“Coach Mazey has had so much to do with this, so to be able to continue what we’ve started, keep winning ballgames and making regionals, and at the end of the day, however you want to slice it, it’s about getting to this tournament. If you are the 64^th team in or the first team in, you have an opportunity to do special things if you get your foot in the door,” Sabins stated.

The coach explained that this year’s team has been built on opportunities.

“We have depth, and there have been a lot of guys that have fought for opportunities to play on a regular basis, so this is another opportunity for our team,” he said. “If you get in the tournament, you’ve got a shot, and that’s all you can ever ask for.”

Sabins said he felt good about his team’s body of work, which included a school-record-tying 19 regular season wins in conference play and an eye-opening 23-5 record in road games this year.

Without researching it, I’m comfortable stating that none of the eight SEC teams hosting NCAA Regionals this year played 23 road games, let alone win that many. In fact, some of them might not have played 23 road games in the last two years combined! 

“There is always a little bit of rumor mill going on because there are humans on these committees and there is a little bit of gossip going into it, but I felt good that we were in the tournament,” Sabins said. “I didn’t know where exactly we were going to go, but our resume showed that we would be a tournament contender after winning the Big 12 regular season title.”

Ultimately, the Big 12 got eight of its 14 baseball-playing teams into this year’s 64-team tournament.

“I felt like maybe we got disrespected a little bit as far as getting regional hosts, and because of that I felt like maybe we would have more Big 12 teams in,” Sabins pointed out. “I’ve been in the Big 12 for 15 straight years, and I don’t ever remember there being eight teams (in the tournament). 

“It’s a larger league now with 14 members playing baseball, but over half of our league getting in a regional is certainly a great sign for the Big 12,” he added.

Indeed, it is, and it’s also a great sign of where West Virginia University baseball is headed under first-year coach Steve Sabins.

With him around orchestrating things, perhaps some more bases should be ordered for the weight room wall.