MORGANTOWN — Somewhere in the desert heat, at a time when most of the country was nestled away safely in their beds, the ninth-ranked WVU baseball team has once again gotten right what had once been terribly wrong.
The Mountaineers – behind a three-hit game from Sean Smith and a group pitching effort that gave up a grand total of just three hits – advanced to the Big 12 tournament championship game Friday night with a 7-3 victory over No. 21 Arizona State inside Sunrise Park, in Sunrise, Ariz.
Or maybe make that early Saturday morning. The final out – a hold-your-breath fly ball from Arizona State star Landon Hairston – didn’t come until 2:15 a.m. on the East Coast.
In any case, the second-seeded Mountaineers (39-13) are back in the Big 12 title game for the first time since 2016, when the tournament was played in Oklahoma City, Okla. WVU will meet top-seeded Kansas at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the title matchup.
It’s been a long 10 years for WVU to once again reach this pinnacle. In that time, the tournament moved from Oklahoma City to Arlington, Texas and now to the state of Arizona, where the Mountaineers have felt right at home as of late.
WVU was a dreadful 1-7 over its last four Big 12 tournaments, with the sum of those defeats sometimes costing the team a chance to play in the NCAA tournament or the opportunity to host a NCAA regional.
Not so this year. Following a 4-2 victory against Kansas State in the quarterfinals, WVU backed that up with an exciting victory over the Sun Devils (37-19) in the semifinals that went down to the final play. That win likely secured a hosting spot in Morgantown for next week’s NCAA tournament, as WVU’s RPI rating improved to No. 15 in the country in the minutes after the contest.
Hosting and RPI rankings are but a sidenote to the Mountaineers at the moment, because WVU now has a chance to create history under second-year head coach Steve Sabins. The Mountaineers have never won the Big 12 tournament and haven’t won a conference tournament since 1996, when Greg Van Zant was the head coach and WVU was a member of the Big East.
That opportunity comes against the 13th-ranked Jayhawks, who scored six runs in the eighth inning to blow past Oklahoma State, 9-2, in the first semifinal game.
The championship meeting sets up WVU for either an opportunity to go an impressive 4-0 against the Jayhawks this season or for Kansas to wipe away the frustrations of getting swept by the Mountaineers during the regular season.
As for WVU’s win against Arizona State, the Mountaineers are 8-1 while playing in the state of Arizona over the past three seasons, which includes their NCAA regional win in 2024.
Getting this one saw WVU starter Chansen Cole pitch five imposing innings, in which he allowed just two hits, two runs and struck out six. His two runs allowed came on just two swings. First, Arizona State’s Nuu Contrades tripled, which was followed by Dean Toigo’s home run that gave the Sun Devils a 2-1 lead in the fourth inning.
Contrades gave Arizona State a 3-1 lead in the top of the sixth after scoring from second base on a wild pitch, but the Mountaineers took control from there.
Smith and Matthew Graveline each had one-out base hits, before Armani Guzman hit a long fly ball that bounced high off the left-field wall. Smith scored on the play to cut Arizona State’s lead to 3-2.
Brodie Kresser hit a slow roller that Arizona State shortstop P.J. Moutzouridis ended up throwing high and past first base. Graveline and Guzman scored to give WVU a 4-3 lead.
WVU added to that lead in the eighth inning when Guzman walked with one out and Kresser followed with a single up the middle.
Guzman tried to get to third base on the hit and Hairston’s throw to the base either hit off Guzman or off the base and bounced toward WVU’s dugout. Guzman beat the throw to the plate to give WVU a 5-3 lead.
Tyrus Hall’s base hit then drove in Kresser and Hall capped off the game with the ultimate hustle play. With two outs, Hall stole second base, as the throw from the catcher was wide and headed for center field. Hall got to third and kept going, barely beating out Hairston’s throw to the plate for the final score.
WVU’s pitching was another highlight, as five relievers followed Cole and allowed just one run, one hit, but five walks. Dawson Montesa earned his first save of the year by recording the final five outs and Reese Bassinger (4-2) earned the win.
Hairston, the Big 12’s Player of the Year, was subdued by WVU’s pitching in the semifinals. The outfielder went 0 for 4 with a walk, but his long fly ball to right field in the ninth inning came with two runners on base. The ball was caught a step in from the wall for the final out of the game.
