MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – They say one's a dot, two's a line and three's a trend. Well, West Virginia University baseball is well on its way to trending in the national rankings.

Coach Steve Sabins' first season overseeing the Mountaineer program in 2025 saw WVU finish ranked in all the major polls for a second straight year, ranging from as high as No. 12 in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) poll to No. 17 in the USA Today coaches' poll.

In between, Baseball America ranked West Virginia No. 13, while Perfect Game and D1Baseball.com had the Mountaineers 14^th.

That's roughly where West Virginia ended its 2024 campaign during coach Randy Mazey's farewell tour. Baseball America, NCBWA and D1Baseball ranked the Mountaineers 13^th; Perfect Game had them 15^th while the coaches placed them 17^th in their final poll.

That makes it 61 years since the last time West Virginia finished consecutive seasons ranked in the polls going back to when Collegiate Baseball was the only one doing it.

It's only the ninth time since Collegiate Baseball began ranking teams in 1959 that WVU has ended its season nationally ranked, and just the third occasion since USA Today took over the coaches' poll in 1991.

Prior to that, the coaches worked in unison with Collegiate Baseball and ESPN to put out their weekly baseball polls.

The other years WVU ended its season nationally ranked were 2019 (20^th), 1982 (16^th), 1967 (20^th), 1964 (15^th), 1963 (11^th), 1962 (20^th) and 1961 (24^th).

In all, the Mountaineers have been ranked 57 times since first cracking the national rankings on June 8, 1961, when Hall of Fame coach Steve Harrick was leading the program.

"It's an honor for our program to be viewed as one of the best in the nation," Sabins said. "Players, staff, donors and our administration have worked consistently for years to build a special baseball program in Morgantown.

"I believe the program has been built on a foundation of hard work; not the chase for recognition," he added. "The people inside the program have apathy towards recognition. We all work to be part of something greater than ourselves and make the people of West Virginia proud."

This year, West Virginia established a program record with 44 victories and claimed its first outright Big 12 regular season title in school history. The Mountaineers reached the NCAA Tournament Super Regionals for a second straight year before falling to eventual national champion LSU in Baton Rouge.

Afterward, Tigers coach Jay Johnson congratulated the Mountaineers on a successful season and noted that Sabins is one of the rising stars in the coaching profession.

"If you're buying stock in a program, buy it in West Virginia," Johnson said.