GRANVILLE — For whatever reason, Steve Sabins felt the urge to take a walk outside his office and take a look around Kendrick Family Ballpark in what was the calm before the storm.
“It was 3:30 p.m.,” Sabins began Monday night after West Virginia won the Morgantown Regional with a 6-5 victory against Kentucky. “There were already people up on the hill. There were guys with no shirts on and girls with bikini tops sun bathing. Obviously they didn’t have jobs.”
A few hours later, the park was jumping. The announced crowd of 4,607 – plus maybe a thousand more on that hill – witnessed, quite possibly, one of the greatest moments in WVU athletics history.
That was the question – where does this moment rank? – that floated around in the minutes following Armani Guzman’s base hit that scored Brodie Kresser in the 10th inning to win what was a masterful trilogy against the Wildcats this weekend.
“The whole weekend, it was cinema,” Sabins said.
Where does it all rank compared to WVU’s other all-time moments? It’s not exactly an easy answer. What is quite evident is that Sabins and his group of players just may be the most resilient group of athletes to ever put on a WVU uniform, in any sport.
You have to put the entire regional in a vacuum to truly appreciate the accomplishment. Monday’s effort, which saw maybe the gutsiest collection of pitching performances from Maxx Yehl, Ian Korn, Chasen Cole and Dawson Montesa, can’t stand alone.
WVU (43-15) played five games over the course of four days. It lost a heartbreaker on Saturday in Kentucky, Part 1.
And that was supposed to set up the storyline that WVU fans know all too well. You know the one: Nice season, good players, good moments, but it all comes crashing down just when the Mountaineers are on the edge of taking that huge step toward national respect.
Wake Forest is a national brand in college baseball. That’s where it probably should have ended for the Mountaineers on that Sunday morning.
It didn’t, as Montesa pitched a gem. That set up Kentucky, Part 2. A doubleheader, no less. No way WVU could beat a national brand and then a team from the mighty, mighty SEC in consecutive games on the same day.
WVU outfielder Paul Schoenfeld felt otherwise, as his two-run homer in the ninth inning provided the spark for what was about to come.
“I kind of blacked out,” Schoenfeld said afterward.
He wasn’t the only one. WVU trailed by three runs going into that final inning against the Wildcats (33-23) and it somehow scored five to win it, as Schoenfeld’s blast to right field went viral on all social media platforms a day later.
Then came Monday night, a winner-take-all scenario with a trip to the super regionals on the line.
Yehl, after getting lifted in the first inning due to injury against Kentucky just two days earlier, was back to his old self. The Big 12 Pitcher of the Year went five innings and handed the Mountaineers a 4-1 lead. He struck out six and allowed just three hits.
“I’m super grateful for the opportunity,” Yehl said. “I’m just grateful the coaches believed in me and gave me the ball. I was very excited to get back out there today and help my team win.”
WVU’s lead went out to 5-1 when Gavin Kelly smacked a home run in the sixth, and while the Mountaineers were cruising, it just didn’t feel right.
After all, Kentucky and West Virginia were seemingly tied together in soap opera fashion in NCAA tournament baseball lately. Two meetings at the Clemson Regional a year ago were epic. WVU won both, first with a walk-off in the ninth and then by scoring six runs in the eighth inning to win a wild 13-12 affair to win that regional.
Cruising with a 5-1 lead? You just knew that wasn’t going to last.
“For a second, I kind of let myself think we had won the game,” Guzman said. “I was standing at first base thinking, ‘Man, we just may have won this thing.’ I quickly realized just how this game works and Kentucky is a great squad.”
How this game works is Kentucky came back and smacked two home runs in the eighth inning. The game was now tied, 5-5, and was soon headed for extra innings.
It’s when you consider the whole, the entire amount of times this WVU baseball team was given the chance to take the off-ramp, fold the tent, pack it up and refused to do so is what makes WVU’s third consecutive trip to the super regionals one of the top athletic moments in school history.
Just a day before, WVU relief pitcher Ben McDougal was asked about facing the reality of his college career coming to an end, once Kentucky had taken a 9-6 lead in the seventh inning.
“I never thought my career was coming to an end,” he replied as serious and straight-forward as possible.
McDougal’s words just may sort of sum up this entire WVU team. This bunch just believes it is never out of a game, and spent the entire Morgantown Regional showing that to the rest of the college baseball world.
“That was fun, couldn’t draw it up any better,” Sabins said. “Everything you love about coaching and everything you love about players was on full display this weekend. It literally had everything you could imagine.
“If you keep going and you can get through adversity and stick together, you can do incredible things.”
Incredible things, like creating the type of atmosphere for college baseball in Morgantown that will never be forgotten … by those with jobs or without them.
