Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Mountaineers in Good Shape Despite Sub-.500 Mark
April 09, 2018 12:42 PM | Baseball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - The temperatures have been unseasonably cold for April in Morgantown, but at least it was sunny for Sunday afternoon's game against UNLV.
Veteran coach Randy Mazey's West Virginia University baseball team has spent weekends in Jacksonville, Florida, Conway, South Carolina, Bowling Green, Kentucky and Murfreesboro and Cookeville, Tennessee before finally playing its first home game of the year against Canisius in 39-degree weather on Friday, March 16.
A March 20 date with LaSalle had to be cancelled, as was West Virginia's home game against Pitt on March 27.
Then a week later, a midweek game scheduled at nearby Penn State on April 3 had to be switched to Morgantown against Niagara because the Nittany Lions' ballpark had too much snow on its field.
Last weekend's three-game series with UNLV, originally slated for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, had to be adjusted on the fly with two games moved to Friday afternoon and the final game played an hour earlier on Sunday to work around a Saturday morning snowstorm that was predicted to dump a couple of inches of snow in the area.
Morgantown avoided the predicted heavier accumulations, and Mazey got in some sorely needed home games with the regular season now reaching its midway point.
The Mountaineers' overall record is still two games under .500 at 13-15, but they are actually in pretty good shape right now with an RPI of 23 heading into this week's action.
West Virginia is the only team with a sub-.500 record in the top 50 this week on the basis of facing the hardest schedule in the country. WVU has played 18 true road games, third-most of any team in the top 50 behind just No. 19 Connecticut (22) and No. 43 Nevada (20).
College baseball puts added weight on road games because of the climate advantages southern teams traditionally have - something Mazey has capitalized on since he's been at West Virginia.
Sure, it's never easy winning at someone else's ballpark early in the season, and the overall record is not always spectacular in March, but the Mountaineers have really benefitted from playing those difficult early season road games when the calendar flips to April and then May.
Last year, the Mountaineers were jut 8-7 after losing two of three at Old Dominion in mid-March before winning 11 of their next 14 games and finishing the year with an RPI strong enough to earn them their first NCAA Tournament at-large berth in school history.
Two years ago, after another brutal early season travel stretch spanning both coasts plus a trip to Hawaii, WVU went on a late-season tear that saw it reach the Big 12 Tournament championship game before losing to TCU, 11-10, in extra innings.
West Virginia ended up winning 36 games that season and was one of the last teams left out of the NCAA Tournament.
So, Mazey didn't hit the panic button when West Virginia's record dipped to 11-15 following Friday's game-one loss to 23-11 UNLV. He wrote basically the same names on his lineup card for game two, a come-from-behind 8-7 win, and ran the same guys out there on Sunday for an impressive 7-5 victory over the Rebels.
"It's just a matter of getting back home and sleeping in our own beds," Mazey told a gathering of reporters on Sunday afternoon. "Hopefully, the weather will start warming up a little bit. We just haven't hit our rhythm yet offensively, and it's no different than when we stood here last year at the end of March, beginning of April."
Presently, West Virginia has a stretch of games coming up in either Morgantown, Pittsburgh or Charleston through the rest of the month where the players can sleep in their own beds and not be stuck on a bus or an airplane for an extended period of time.
WVU makes a quick trip up Interstate 79 to Pittsburgh to play Penn State in PNC Park on Tuesday night and then returns to Morgantown for a Wednesday night game against Pitt at Monongalia County Ballpark.
After that, Oklahoma State comes to Morgantown for a three-game Big 12 series, followed by a short midweek trip up to Pittsburgh again to play the Panthers on Tuesday, followed by another three-game weekend conference home series against Kansas State.
April closes with a Tuesday trip to Charleston to play Marshall and then three more league games at home against Texas.
A May 1 matchup against Maryland closes the long homestand before the Mountaineers get back on an airplane to play three games at Kansas.
That's 11 of the next 14 games in Morgantown with the other three within a reasonable driving distance.
"You play on the road the first month and a half, playing on different fields all the time with different backgrounds, sleeping in different beds, and it's just hard to get a rhythm that way," Mazey explained. "So, in past years, this is about the time when we take off offensively. Hopefully, it's the same."
Tuesday's opponent Penn State is struggling with a 7-18 record, but the Nittany Lions, for whatever reason, have been a thorn in West Virginia's side in recent years.
Pitt is having a fine season with a 17-11 record, recently taking two of three from Virginia and winning a game at No. 27 Duke.
Oklahoma State has a solid 17-11-1 record heading into this weekend's action with an RPI of 40.
Marshall is over .500 with a 14-13 record, while always tough Texas is having another outstanding season with a 22-12 record and an RPI of 31 heading into games this week.
In fact, just five remaining opponents - Penn State (217), Kansas State (101), Marshall (147), Maryland (104) and Virginia Tech (111) - have RPIs above 100.
That means if West Virginia can get on a little winning streak here at home and get its overall record back over .500, it will be right there once again knocking on the door for another NCAA bid when tournament time comes at the end of May.
By then, hopefully West Virginia's bats are as warm as the weather.
Veteran coach Randy Mazey's West Virginia University baseball team has spent weekends in Jacksonville, Florida, Conway, South Carolina, Bowling Green, Kentucky and Murfreesboro and Cookeville, Tennessee before finally playing its first home game of the year against Canisius in 39-degree weather on Friday, March 16.
A March 20 date with LaSalle had to be cancelled, as was West Virginia's home game against Pitt on March 27.
Then a week later, a midweek game scheduled at nearby Penn State on April 3 had to be switched to Morgantown against Niagara because the Nittany Lions' ballpark had too much snow on its field.
Last weekend's three-game series with UNLV, originally slated for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, had to be adjusted on the fly with two games moved to Friday afternoon and the final game played an hour earlier on Sunday to work around a Saturday morning snowstorm that was predicted to dump a couple of inches of snow in the area.
Morgantown avoided the predicted heavier accumulations, and Mazey got in some sorely needed home games with the regular season now reaching its midway point.
The Mountaineers' overall record is still two games under .500 at 13-15, but they are actually in pretty good shape right now with an RPI of 23 heading into this week's action.
West Virginia is the only team with a sub-.500 record in the top 50 this week on the basis of facing the hardest schedule in the country. WVU has played 18 true road games, third-most of any team in the top 50 behind just No. 19 Connecticut (22) and No. 43 Nevada (20).
College baseball puts added weight on road games because of the climate advantages southern teams traditionally have - something Mazey has capitalized on since he's been at West Virginia.
Sure, it's never easy winning at someone else's ballpark early in the season, and the overall record is not always spectacular in March, but the Mountaineers have really benefitted from playing those difficult early season road games when the calendar flips to April and then May.
Last year, the Mountaineers were jut 8-7 after losing two of three at Old Dominion in mid-March before winning 11 of their next 14 games and finishing the year with an RPI strong enough to earn them their first NCAA Tournament at-large berth in school history.
Two years ago, after another brutal early season travel stretch spanning both coasts plus a trip to Hawaii, WVU went on a late-season tear that saw it reach the Big 12 Tournament championship game before losing to TCU, 11-10, in extra innings.
West Virginia ended up winning 36 games that season and was one of the last teams left out of the NCAA Tournament.
So, Mazey didn't hit the panic button when West Virginia's record dipped to 11-15 following Friday's game-one loss to 23-11 UNLV. He wrote basically the same names on his lineup card for game two, a come-from-behind 8-7 win, and ran the same guys out there on Sunday for an impressive 7-5 victory over the Rebels.
"It's just a matter of getting back home and sleeping in our own beds," Mazey told a gathering of reporters on Sunday afternoon. "Hopefully, the weather will start warming up a little bit. We just haven't hit our rhythm yet offensively, and it's no different than when we stood here last year at the end of March, beginning of April."
Presently, West Virginia has a stretch of games coming up in either Morgantown, Pittsburgh or Charleston through the rest of the month where the players can sleep in their own beds and not be stuck on a bus or an airplane for an extended period of time.
WVU makes a quick trip up Interstate 79 to Pittsburgh to play Penn State in PNC Park on Tuesday night and then returns to Morgantown for a Wednesday night game against Pitt at Monongalia County Ballpark.
After that, Oklahoma State comes to Morgantown for a three-game Big 12 series, followed by a short midweek trip up to Pittsburgh again to play the Panthers on Tuesday, followed by another three-game weekend conference home series against Kansas State.
April closes with a Tuesday trip to Charleston to play Marshall and then three more league games at home against Texas.
A May 1 matchup against Maryland closes the long homestand before the Mountaineers get back on an airplane to play three games at Kansas.
That's 11 of the next 14 games in Morgantown with the other three within a reasonable driving distance.
"You play on the road the first month and a half, playing on different fields all the time with different backgrounds, sleeping in different beds, and it's just hard to get a rhythm that way," Mazey explained. "So, in past years, this is about the time when we take off offensively. Hopefully, it's the same."
Tuesday's opponent Penn State is struggling with a 7-18 record, but the Nittany Lions, for whatever reason, have been a thorn in West Virginia's side in recent years.
Pitt is having a fine season with a 17-11 record, recently taking two of three from Virginia and winning a game at No. 27 Duke.
Oklahoma State has a solid 17-11-1 record heading into this weekend's action with an RPI of 40.
Marshall is over .500 with a 14-13 record, while always tough Texas is having another outstanding season with a 22-12 record and an RPI of 31 heading into games this week.
In fact, just five remaining opponents - Penn State (217), Kansas State (101), Marshall (147), Maryland (104) and Virginia Tech (111) - have RPIs above 100.
That means if West Virginia can get on a little winning streak here at home and get its overall record back over .500, it will be right there once again knocking on the door for another NCAA bid when tournament time comes at the end of May.
By then, hopefully West Virginia's bats are as warm as the weather.
Steve Sabins | Feb. 16
Monday, February 16
Matthew Graveline | Feb. 16
Monday, February 16
Reese Bassinger | Feb. 9
Monday, February 09
Brodie Kresser | Feb. 9
Monday, February 09
