While West Virginia's 14-game winning streak came to an end at the hands of Penn State, but there is no need to panic for the Mountaineers going forward.
Heading into Tuesday, West Virginia had played 38 of their 52 total games on their schedule, and had only lost four times. Tuesday was WVU's fifth loss, and while the winning ways came to an end, there is no need to sound the alarms if you're the Mountaineers.
Between now and the time the 16 regional hosts are announced, the biggest thing that matters for WVU is their RPI. Keep your RPI in the 15-20 range or better, and you give yourself a good chance at hosting. Entering their game against Penn State, WVU's RPI sat at No. 14. Following the 3-2 loss, it dropped just one spot to No. 15.
Also, keep in mind that this Penn State team is having their best season in a long time, making them more of a quality opponent when it comes to WVU's resume. The loss to the Nittany Lions was considered a Quad 2 loss, the first of the season for the Mountaineers.
The other great thing about the game against Penn State was that it was a non-conference game, meaning WVU's two-game lead on the rest of the Big 12 remains intact heading into the weekend.
The Mountaineers are 13-3 in league play, carrying an 11-game Big 12 win streak into this weekend against UCF. That UCF series will also be a Quad 1 series as of now, giving the Mountaineers a serious opportunity to make a bounce-back statement.
Overall, losses happen in baseball. It was extremely unlikely WVU would've finished the rest of the season going undefeated. It's also extremely unlikely anyone on that team thought they would finish the season that way.
Look around the country, the top 25 struggled during their midweeks on Tuesday. Seven top 25 teams lost to unranked opponents, including No. 5 LSU, No. 10 Vanderbilt, No. 13 Oklahoma, and No. 16 Oregon, among others.
West Virginia still holds the fewest losses in the country (tied with No. 1 Texas with five), and they will have more than enough opportunities to prove they are worthy of being a host and potentially a top-eight national seed, depending on how the rest of the season goes.
One loss doesn't hurt this team by any means, but if they let this carry into the weekend, then this loss can have a lasting impact on the Mountaineers.
----------
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @wesleyshoe
