MORGANTOWN — In the first inning of the semifinals against North Carolina, West Virginia baseball put Chansen Cole out on the mound. Cole had been dominant in the postseason, and he felt like he was only getting better as the season deepened. He pitched in the College World Series opener against Troy and threw 52 pitches on Friday, June 12. Cole didn’t go too deep, which forced the Mountaineers to use Ian Korn in relief. Korn went an extensive six innings and threw 79 pitches.
Cole, from the first inning against the Tar Heels, didn’t have his best stuff. UNC scored two runs off of him after the first two hitters reached base. He was leaving too many pitches up, which, when he’s on, Cole works down in the zone. In the third inning, Cole had a couple of base runners on, and in a win-or-go-home scenario, Steve Sabins went to the pen. Cole’s day was done.
Once again, Korn had to help out Cole after pitching six innings a couple of days before. He tacked on three more runs for UNC, two were earned by Cole, but it looked like the Mountaineers’ pitching was gassing out. With the Tar Heels extending the lead to double digits, WVU emptied the tank and pitched Reese Bassinger, Carson Estridge and Ben McDougal to try and stop the bleeding. But, it didn’t work as the Mountaineers’ season ended in a 12-7 loss to UNC, where they allowed 16 hits.
Despite the pitching struggles, Sabins felt confident in his pitching depth in the postseason and felt it could win a national championship.
“I think we really had a good shot from the pitching side,” Sabins said. “That was probably the deepest staff we’ve ever had. And you continue to try to make it deeper and better and more nasty and all of those things. But we probably had the arms that we needed to win a title this year.”
When you look at the other teams in the league, they don’t have three to four starters as WVU did. The Mountaineers could get solid starts out of Cole, Maxx Yehl, Ian Korn and even Dawson Montesa, who really showed up in the NCAA tournament. Even David Hagen started the second game against Kentucky and didn’t look out of sorts.
Just looking at UNC, who is now in the national championship, the Tar Heels have only a couple of starters. They are really good starters, like Caden Glauber, who is a stud, but they don’t have multiple options.
“Look at North Carolina,” Sabins said. “They throw probably three less arms than us. So it’s not really about the total amount of arms. It’s just the quality at which they perform in those moments.”
WVU received a lot of quality performances from its pitching staff. Yehl led the Mountaineers to their first CWS against Cal Poly, Cole had a season-high strikeouts in the super regional as well, Montesa threw 122 pitches against Wake Forest and Korn went the distance against Troy in Game 1.
There were a lot more arms that helped throughout the season, and were capable of throwing if needed.
“So throughout the year, every staff starts with 18,” Sabins said. “That whittles down to 12. Eight get the majority of the innings. When you get to Omaha, five actually throw. And then you might mix in a couple, like, left-handed match-up guys, right-handed match-up guys, depending on what your personnel is.”
Sabins might’ve only thrown a couple during the NCAA tournament because those were his top five arms, and then it also just comes down to matchups based on opponent. What team struggles with lefties? What hitters can’t touch the ball deep in the zone?
“So not necessarily the amount of arms, it’s just you need to have good match-ups, too,” Sabins said. “So who you play matters in this event. Some of that is luck of the draw. Some of that is when you’re hot or how guys are performing or their recovery or their age or how they bounce back, all those kind of things.”
Even after the pitching staff allowed 16 hits and 12 runs, Sabins felt he had enough talent and arms to win the CWS. It just came down to a couple of bad innings against UNC that ended the season.
“There’s basically no team in the country that, when you get to this event, would ever throw more than seven pitchers,” Sabins said. “It’s probably more like five. That’s really what you need.”
