Over the past two weekends, West Virginia was chasing down a Big 12 title. That title chase, while successful, slowed down the Mountaineers' momentum.
Thursday's win over Cincinnati hopes to have restored that momentum as that winning feeling returned to the West Virginia dugout.
"It felt like we had pressed, and we had pushed, and we had pressed. And there was a Big 12 regular season title on the line. And no matter what you say and how you prepare, when these kids pour this much into being great, they do feel that. And so I felt over the course of the last few weeks, maybe the guys were pressing for hits or trying to have success for the program. That's all they want, man. These guys go to work every day to do something special for our state, community, and university," West Virginia head coach Steve Sabins said.
WVU won their first outright Big 12 title last weekend, but this weekend, they are hoping to win their first Big 12 Tournament title. That motivation does not come from Sabins who is in his first season as head coach, but it is player driven for the Mountaineers.
"I don't think anything I say at this point is going to change how these guys play or perform. It's their team. It's been their team for a long time. They've taken ownership of this team. Guys like these [Griffin Kirn and Kyle West], these guys will dictate how far this team goes. I'm going to try to put them in positions to be successful. That's my job at this point. But there's no rah, rah speeches. There's nothing that I can say or do at this point," Sabins said.
That feeling of accountability is something West feels. He's in his second season as a Mountaineer, but understood what this team went through each of the last two weeks.
"I think coming the last two weeks were obviously not what we wanted. We lost two series. We had time to regroup, think about what had happened the past two weeks, reflect on it for positive. When you start looking into the negative, you get so deep down a rabbit hole, and you try and fix everything. But on the surface, we're an elite-level baseball team. So, try and regroup, recuperate on what we do well, and take that into this weekend. And I think we showed tonight what we did all season. So I think it's a great start, and looking forward, I think we're in a great position," West said.
The thing that helped West Virginia flush what happened in the regular season is the idea that once the tournament start, it's an entirely new season.
"But I do think before we came here, we did remind the guys that there's certainly some doubters. So we just won a Big 12 title, and we tied the most wins in program history, and there's still a lot of doubters of what that was. And so you have a choice. You can either play with a chip on your shoulder. You can use that for fuel. Or you can ignore it. Those are the options," Sabins said.
It seems as though West Virginia used it for fuel, as a 10-3 win over Cincinnati put the Mountaineers in the Big 12 Semifinals.
"I have my preference. [Kirn] probably has his preference. Kyle West has his preference. But everybody in that locker room knows how special this team is and what we've accomplished. I think the most important thing you hit on, stumbled at the end. Well, this is the beginning. And so we don't really want to look at it like the end, because if you think it's the end, then it's the end. And so we talked about something new, a rebirth, getting to go start a new season basically today," Sabins said.
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