West Virginia was potentially the anomaly in terms of pitching performance this past weekend, and head coach Steve Sabins sees that as a good thing.
This past weekend, the Mountaineers opened the 2025 season with a series sweep of Jacksonville. During the series, WVU's bullpen surrendered only three runs, pitching 13.2 innings throughout the weekend.
"Then the bullpen was excellent, they gave up 3 runs over the course of three games. So early in the season, you start looking at some box scores from across the country and there are guys that scored 36 runs and 20 runs and 19 runs, there was a lot of offensive opening weekend, so our bullpen did an excellent job," Sabins said.
The table was set by the performance of Griffin Kirn, Gavin Van Kempen, and Robby Porco, all of who started each game and gave Sabins exactly what he needed. He imagined they would each go four innings, but he was pleasantly surprised with the performance he got from each of them.
"I predicted on the first weekend, if you had an excellent weekend, your starters are going to go four innings and I think Kirn went 5.2, Van Kempen went 4 and Robby Porco went 3.2 so probably over exceeded expectations as far as first time out being able to control the game. Each one of those guys left with the lead so if your starter can exit the game with the lead you certainly give yourself a position to win the ball game," Sabins said.
Kirn was the leader in the clubhouse of performances, as he turned in 5.2 innings on Friday, giving up one run, one hit, and striking out five.
"Ultimate trust to get a guy that hasn’t been in your program and to have him show up and take the mound and the ball for the first time in a new season, a season we’re excited about and believe that we’ll be competitive in and say this guy gets the ball he’s going to represent this state and this university for the first pitch of our program," Sabins said.
Kirn, a Division II transfer, is following in the footsteps of Derek Clark, who like Kirn, is a left-handed pitcher who came to WVU with tons of experience.
"There’s a hell of a lot more to prove. He has five innings under his belt, on a team that’s not in our conference, so there’s so much more to prove, he has to continue to get better, all of those things are true. But ultimate trust in a guy, when you start a season and there are so many people invested in what we do and how we do and how we do it and how we perform you want to make sure that person is a solid person in general character-wise handles his business, the trust has to be off the chart. That’s what Griffin Kirn is a high character, high trust, high talent player," Sabins said.
Kirn will likely get the ball on Friday night when WVU faces Lipscomb, and Sabins hopes for a repeat performance.
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