West Virginia is off to their best start since 1964, and unsurprisingly, their success is coming from their depth and experience.
Coming into the season, there were a lot of unknowns surrounding this West Virginia baseball team. The main variables that first-year head coach Steve Sabins was aware of included his lineup's depth and their experience, two things that have shown themselves early in the year.
"I think it's always just focusing on the opponent in front of you," Sabins said on what's been able to help WVU's 8-0 start.
So far this year, 16 players have recorded an at-bat for the Mountaineers. 14 of them have started at least one game, and only four have started all eight games.
"The best thing about having some depth on this team is that there's people that are consistently working to become everyday players. And I don't know if that's gonna happen necessarily with this team, because we're able to play with some matchups: righty, lefty, power, speed, some different options in the lineup," Sabins said.
Out of the four guys who have started all eight games, it's no surprise it is directed towards the middle of the field. Catcher Logan Sauve, shortstop Brodie Kresser, second baseman Sam White, and center fielder Skylar King are mainstays in the lineup and also some of the most experienced Mountaineers.
"I think the players that have been playing every day, Skylar King, Sam White, Brodie Kresser, Logan Sauve, is strategically up the middle. So you have these veteran players that kind of know what it takes to be good every day and what the expectations are. And literally, our corners have been somewhat interchangeable up to this point, other than Grant Hussey, who's played the majority of the innings. So I think that's really important for us when it comes to just staying motivated throughout and focusing on just getting better and playing good baseball, I don't think we'll take anything for granted at this point," Sabins said.
Both Hussey and Sauve were part of the Super Regional team that made program history a year ago, and now those two are making more history as WVU is off to their best start since 1964.
"We're winning all the close ones. We're doing what we should, when we should. Baseball can go a million different ways and we've kept it on the tracks and kept going forward," Hussey said.
Sauve said the chemistry of this group has been evident early on, helping the Mountaineers continue their success.
"Just a super close group of guys. We all trust in each other. We all believe in each other. And I think, like you said, it's kind of throughout the line, we've got a lot of young guys stepping up, making critical hits in critical times and scoring runs when we need it. So I think everybody's just pulling for each other and wishing everybody for the best," Sauve said.
----------
• 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
