Any king will always wear their crown on their head. For WVU outfielder Skylar King, what matters the most is what goes on inside his head.
In WVU's opening weekend sweep of Jacksonville, King was a major part of multiple Mountaineer victories. King went 6-for-10 on the weekend with a home run, a triple, two runs scored, and five RBIs.
"That’s the definition of Skylar King. He’s just gotten better," West Virginia head coach Steve Sabins said.
King is now at the start of his third year at West Virginia and Sabins can see the maturity taking shape.
"His biggest adjustment, he has a really nice swing, he loves to play and loves to work, but his biggest adjustment by far has been his approach. He’s really started to figure out the game mentally and what his mind needs to be thinking so his body can execute at a high level," Sabins said.
King's mental approach was not more evident than a two-pitch sequence from him this past weekend. King was fooled on one pitch, before knocking the next pitch out of the park, while getting the same look.
"Game two of the double-header, we don’t win unless he comes up with a big home run. That was a fun swing. The pitch before, the kids in the dugout would call that a sword because he swung and missed at a breaking ball so terribly and looked like an idiot. He was able to flush that swing completely, which was probably the worst swing of the series from anybody, and the very next pitch they threw him the same pitch and he hit a homer to right field, so it almost looked like a set up job by Skylar. I’ll let him think that I can’t hit the breaking ball coming into me and basically single handedly won that game for us," Sabins said.
King hit .258 last season with five home runs in 58 games played, starting 45 of those games. Sabins has continued to see King's development and hope it continues to translate to the remainder of the season as King is the type of player Sabins has done so well in recruiting throughout his time at West Virginia.
"Our program has always been built on development. It’s been built on getting great athletes with awesome work ethics and letting them improve over the course of their career," Sabins said.
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