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West Virginia head coach Randy Mazey knew he was in for a battle with two outs during the fourth inning of Thursday night’s series opener against George Washington.

A battle with junior right-handed pitcher Alek Manoah that is.

Whenever Mazey goes out to the mound with the intention of pulling Manoah out of the game, he knows Manoah will always resist and want to stay on the mound.

That was no different Thursday night.

However, Mazey had Manoah on a pitch count and decided to pull him after throwing just 56 pitches while West Virginia had an 8-1 lead thanks to a seven-run third inning by the Mountaineers.

“I had a little fight on my hands,” Mazey said. “I wanted to give him an opportunity to be recognized by the crowd. He may go down as one of the greatest pitchers in the history of this program and I just wanted the people who came out to see him pitch have an opportunity to recognize him for it.”

While Thursday night could very well be the final time Manoah pitches at Monongalia County Ballpark unless West Virginia hosts a regional or he decides to return, the projected first round MLB Draft pick managed to break a program record that stood 55 years.

By striking out his third batter of the game during the second inning Thursday and 124th of the season, Manoah surpassed John Radosevich’s record for most strikeouts in a single season set back in 1964. He later exited to a standing ovation from the Monongalia County Ballpark crowd.

"That’s definitely one of the best moments of my career here,” Manoah said of the standing ovation. “Any time your name goes down in such a good program and a record that’s been there for 55 years, it feels good.”

While the start was one of Manoah’s shortest of the season, it served as an opportunity for him to work his change-up and get some work in before next week’s Big 12 Tournament.

According to Mazey, Manoah will be the starter for West Virginia’s second game of next week’s conference tournament in Oklahoma City with midweek starter Nick Snyder starting the first game on Wednesday.

“It couldn’t have gone more perfectly,” Mazey said. “He did what he needed to do, threw the number of pitches that we needed him to throw. We needed to limit his pitch count today. He went out and threw good change-ups which we worked on in the bullpen this week which he needed to do. We got a big lead for him, so again, the stars lined up perfectly.”

Manoah wasn’t the only one to break a program record Thursday.

Senior outfielder Darius Hill, who recently broke the program record for most games played, hit his 74th career double to begin the bottom of the eighth inning, surpassing Jedd Gyorko’s previous mark set between 2008-2010.

Hill also broke the program record for career at-bats with 910, passing Tyler Kuhn’s previous record of 906 set between 2005-2008.

"It’s an exciting moment for me,” Hill said. “(Gyorko’s) obviously a great player. He’s got a ton of records here. Just special being a part of breaking one of them.”

Both Hill and Manoah have embodied the program’s culture and embraced the challenges ahead of them when they first stepped foot in Morgantown, according to Mazey.

“When guys like Darius came in this program, we were trying to sell them on the fact ‘let’s do something that’s never been done before. Let’s do something special,’” Mazey said. “When you can sell kids on the opportunity to do something that’s never been done before, that’s pretty exciting for kids to jump into a situation like that.”

That has come to fruition.

From achieving success in the Big 12 and reaching an NCAA regional in 2017 for the first time since 1996, Manoah and Hill and have served as key pieces to the puzzle and have also helped lead the program into being in contention to host a regional this season--something the program has never done.

“When you’re not on the field, you still gotta act like a champion and (Manoah) and Darius have been across the board as good as anybody I’ve ever had as far as being committed to our program and culture and doing the right thing on the field, off the field,” Mazey said. “There couldn’t be two more deserving guys to break career records.”

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