West Virginia feeding off crowds, prepping for what could be ahead
West Virginia reeled off their ninth consecutive victory in dominating fashion 10-0 over rival Pittsburgh in front of 4,070 inside Wagener Field at Monongalia County Ballpark.
The atmosphere, despite the rainfall, was lively as the crowds continued to fill into the ballpark to support a Mountaineers team that now sits 34-11 overall and atop the Big 12 Conference standings. That attendance number is the most ever for a regular season baseball game in Morgantown.
That type of crowd is impressive under any circumstance but when you consider that temperatures were in the mid-40’s and there was consistent rainfall it’s especially eye-opening.
And the team not only noticed, but fed off that energy.
“This atmosphere just had our guys so energized. We literally didn’t give away an at-bat this entire day. Our guys were ready to play and ready to make the whole community proud of what we’re doing,” head coach Randy Mazey said.
It didn’t hurt that the Backyard Brawl was on the docket which never hurts to draw interest.
“I think our guys are starting to learn what it’s all about,” Mazey said.
But even with that being said this had the feeling of a post-season game, as it was reminiscent to the 2019 Regional where a record crowd of 4,355 as fans poured into the stadium.
The difference there is that team wasn’t necessarily prepared to play in that type of environment. In fact, Mazey recalls former pitcher Alek Manoah, now an ace for the Toronto Blue Jays, telling him that he was glad that he didn’t get tabbed as the starter for game one of that regional due to his emotions.
“But now we’re doing that every game so our kids are getting used to that now and that’s a huge advantage getting used to playing in atmospheres like that. “And now it’s common place,” Mazey said.
West Virginia had a great turnout for Penn State and the next five or six games are expected to be standing room only, which is helping the players become accustomed to what they could potentially see if this team continues to pile up the wins. But that is getting ahead of themselves.
For now, the focus is simply on winning the games in front of them in order to get to that point.
West Virginia is ranked 12th in the nation by D1Baseball.com, while Baseball America has the baseball program ranked 11th. The USA Today Coaches Poll also places the Mountaineers at No. 14.
The program is set to host a three-game series with Oklahoma beginning Friday with another meeting with Pittsburgh, this time on the road set for May 10. There’s a lot of baseball left, but the Mountaineers aren’t buying into their own hype despite their success.
“We’re doing a good job of staying grounded but also playing into the energy that we get from the crowd. The rankings right now doesn’t really mean anything. This type of stuff doesn’t matter,” said JJ Wetherholt.
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