WVU to Face UConn
May 10, 2007 02:16 PM | General
May 10, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University baseball team is fighting an uphill battle to make this year’s Big East tournament to be played May 22-26, in Brooklyn, N.Y. Despite that, Mountaineer coach Greg Van Zant is not preaching three-game sweep to his team when they play this weekend at Connecticut.
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| Redshirt freshman first baseman Jordon Yost leads the Mountaineers with 11 home runs.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“That mentality makes it tough to play,” Van Zant said after Wednesday night’s 6-4 win over Ohio University. “We’re just going to go out there and try and win the game we’re playing. Realistically, we need to go beat UConn two out of three. In 12-15 years in the league we’ve swept one team (Cincinnati last year) in a three-game series on the road so that’s pretty unrealistic.”
West Virginia (25-19) has won two of its last three but is just 5-9 over its last 14 games, seeing its team batting average fall 16 points from a season-high .340 after a 16-4 victory over Cincinnati on April 13.
WVU’s top three hitters in the batting order Adam White, Tyler Kuhn and Justin Jenkins have also seen their averages dip, though Jenkins has boosted his back over .400 with a two-hit performance Wednesday night against the Bobcats. Jenkins is second to Jordon Yost (11) on the team with 10 home runs.
“Our top three guys came to bat (Wednesday) and it was 3-0 in the top of the first. You can’t coach that,” Van Zant said. “Even the best hitters in the history of the game are going to make outs. Sometimes the ebbs and flows of the season they might have bad days at the same time.
“There is nothing you can do about it but show confidence in them and tell them to keep working hard because they’re all three really good players,” Van Zant said. “In a baseball game you only get four or five at-bats. That’s why we play 56 instead of 10.”
Van Zant said redshirt freshman Josh Whitlock will be making his second conference start of the season, joining Matt Yurish and Kenny Durst in the weekend rotation. Levi Maxwell will once again come out of the bullpen.
“We stopped Maxwell (Tuesday night against Maryland) at 59 pitches to have him ready Saturday in relief,” Van Zant said. “We’re going to need Chris (Enourato) in relief, and we’re going to need (Brendan) Bergerson and (Eric) Saffell to come out of the bullpen because UConn has got a bunch of left-handed hitters in their lineup.”
Last year, Connecticut swept a three-game series from the Mountaineers in Morgantown by scores of 6-3, 7-5 and 13-8.
“It’s going to be a big challenge. We had a knock-down, drag-out series last year and they kind of put it to us here,” Van Zant said. “They swept us so I’m sure they’re going to be ready for us and I’m sure we’ll be ready for them. It ought to be a great series.”
Van Zant would like to see his young team get on a roll heading down the stretch.
“We’re going to have to get on a roll to win. All of our nine players, our pitchers and our bench are going to have to bring their A-games to get to the tournament,” he said. “We’re going to have to play our best baseball of the year these last two weekends and we’re capable.
“If you would have only seen us play the South Florida game you’d say we were a Top 25 team. If you would have seen us play the Sunday Notre Dame game we looked like a Top 25 team,” Van Zant said. “We’ve played some very good baseball games and we’ve also had some games where things haven’t gone our way.”
Van Zant isn’t sure how many games his team is going to need to win to make the eight-team Big East tournament, but figures four of the next six puts the Mountaineers in contention for a playoff spot.
“We may not have to win all six. We may not have to win five,” Van Zant said. “We’re just going to do what we can do -- whatever we can do and I’m sure our guys are going to show up and give it their best shot. If that’s not enough then we’ll try it again next year.”
Van Zant recalled his second year at West Virginia when the Mountaineers’ season came down to the very last pitch. WVU went on to the NCAA regionals that year.
“In ’96 when we won the league we didn’t know if we were going to make it to the tournament until the very last pitch of the season,” he said. “It came down to that against Connecticut. If Connecticut gets a base hit we’re out of the tournament and we went in there with some momentum.”
According to Van Zant, timing is the key to teams playing well in post-season play.
“There is no reason we couldn’t go in there after the last two weeks of the season with some momentum … the team that wins the tournament is just the team that is hot at the end of the season and plays well,” he reasoned. “If we can win enough games to get there I guarantee you our guys will be juiced and we’re very capable of going in there and winning some games.”
Of course getting there remains a major challenge.
Friday’s game with the Huskies is set to start at 3 pm; Saturday’s and Sunday’s game will get underway at noon. Fans can follow all three games on the Internet through CSTV’s Gametracker service.
