MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - When you can open the conference tournament with a freshman on the mound sporting a five-plus earned run average - and you can get the performance that Isaiah Kearns put forth this morning - I want some of whatever it is Randy Mazey is eating these days.

 

In Kearns, West Virginia’s fifth-year coach was putting his team’s game-one hopes on the shoulders of a guy who had pitched just 35.1 innings, allowed 38 hits in those 35.1 innings with opposing teams batting nearly .270 against him.

 

Incidentally, six of those 38 hits traveled out of the ballpark and five more of his pitches sailed back to the backstop, putting runners in position to score even more runs.

 

So, Mazey is either crazy, or crazy like a fox because Isaiah Kearns looked like a right-handed version of Clayton Kershaw out on the mound today following West Virginia's 11-1 victory.

 

“Wow, I think that’s all I can say about that one. Who knew?” said Mazey.

 

Yeah, who knew?

 

Isaiah Kearns for one. He seemed to know.

 

“The game plan was not to let them hit the ball but sometimes it happens and fly ball outs are outs so we’ll take them,” he said afterward, adding, “command the zone, throw strikes and get ahead in counts. I didn’t do that the whole game, but I worked through it and battled it out.”

 

Baylor, which came into the Big 12 Tournament swinging the bats like the ’27 Yankees, couldn’t string two hits together in any inning and managed to plate just one run in the seventh when Richard Cunningham, not to be confused with Richie Cunningham, doubled to right center and eventually scored on Kameron Esthay’s ground out to first.

 

The Bears, now 34-20,  got nothing else after that and the white flag was waved in the bottom of the eighth when the Mountaineers scored two more runs to end the game on the tournament's 10-run rule.

 

“I think Kearns did a really good job of getting ahead of hitters,” said Baylor coach Steve Rodriguez. “He pitched in the zone where the wind was blowing in. I thought he did a good job of elevating his fastball and our guys were swinging at it.”

 

And frequently missing.

 

For Kearns, his pitching line showed just one earned run on three hits through eight innings, striking out six and walking none while facing just two batters over the minimum.

 

After West Virginia jumped out to an early 7-0 lead, Kearns set down Baylor in order in the second, third, fifth, sixth and eighth innings.

 

“It’s just unbelievable what he did today and kudos to him,” Mazey said.

 

He was in such control and with such great pitch efficiency (103 pitches after eight innings) that Mazey would have likely run him out there again in the top of the ninth had the game not been called.

 

And why not?

 

Not only did Kearns give West Virginia a great pitching performance, but he set up the Mountaineers for the rest of the tournament by giving their bullpen a full day off.

 

Plus, No. 1 starter B.J. Myers can now pitch tomorrow with an extra day of rest with No. 2 starter Alek Manoah having at least six-day’s rest before pitching game three, possibly even seven if the Mountaineers can win tomorrow.

 

Contrast that to last year’s five-alarm fire when Mazey lost starter Michael Grove in the first inning of game one and then Chad Donato also departed after the first inning of game two.

 

Somehow, Mazey and pitching coach Derek Matlock cobbled together enough arms to get the Mountaineers to the championship game where it lost in 10 innings to TCU.

 

That loss knocked West Virginia out of the NCAA Tournament and left a bitter taste in the mouths of the players and coaches.

 

This year, West Virginia doesn’t have to deal with the pressure of winning the Big 12 Tournament to extend its season. It’s playing with house money.

 

A strong regular season performance and an outstanding RPI have taken care of that.

 

“This is the exact opposite,” Mazey pointed out. “We lost a lot of pitchers and I’ll bet we lost 200-innings worth of pitching to injuries this year. So, we asked some guys to step up and fill their spots and they saved our season, they really have.”

 

Now, with West Virginia’s pitching lined up perfectly for the remainder of this week, as well as next weekend when it learns its NCAA Tournament destination - perhaps possibly still even Morgantown, West Virginia, if things continue to fall their way - Mazey’s Mountaineers might be looking at something pretty special brewing right now.

 

He has already hit an inside straight with today’s pitching performance from Kearns.

 

Who knows what he’s going to be dealt tomorrow?

 

Perhaps four aces, maybe even a fifth with a wild card the way Mazey is playing his cards right now.