MORGANTOWN, WV – Randy Mazey hopes his West Virginia University baseball squad is gelling at the perfect time. The Mountaineers’ three-game sweep of Baylor last weekend moved them to 14 wins in conference play with nine games remaining.
“We’re in a good spot, and I’ll take it, but there’s still a lot of work to be done,” he said after Sunday’s 13-4 win over Baylor.
Just a week ago, West Virginia was trying to figure out what happened at Texas Tech, where the Red Raiders won all three games of the weekend series by scores of 15-2, 6-4, and 3-1.
“We didn’t sugarcoat it last weekend,” Mazey stated. “We were bad, and sometimes all you need is a solid slap in the face to wake up. That is what the sweep last weekend accomplished because we were not the same team this weekend as we were the previous weekend.
“Those sweeps can serve you well if you approach it right,” he went on to say.
Last year, West Virginia shared the Big 12 regular season title with 15 wins (the most by any WVU team since joining the league in 2013) and advanced to the NCAA regionals for the third time under Mazey. The experienced coach is 43-26 in league play over the previous three years and is looking for one more NCAA Tournament bid in his final season with the Mountaineers.
West Virginia is currently tied with Oklahoma State for second place in the conference standings, one game behind league leader Oklahoma with three weekends remaining in the regular season. The Cowboys, ranked 16th, hold the tiebreaker against the Mountaineers because of their series victory in Morgantown in late March.
If West Virginia and 23rd-ranked Oklahoma tie, the Mountaineers would have the advantage due to the tiebreaker.
West Virginia, at 26-16 overall, is right in the thick of things for another NCAA bid, with games remaining tonight against No. 93 Pitt, at No. 69 Cincinnati this weekend, at home against No. 162 Penn State for a mid-week game next week, and season-ending conference games at home against No. 31 Kansas State and on the road at No. 38 TCU.
“When you play a long season and you travel a lot, that’s the battle, man, trying to figure out who to put into the game at what time and how much you rest them, and you’ve got to win every game while you are doing it,” Mazey said.
Mazey has been coaching long enough to comprehend the big picture, and he understands that getting things where you want them can take time.
On April 24, 1996, West Virginia was one game under.500 after a two-game sweep of Virginia Tech. WVU has already lost a hard-fought weekend series at St. John’s and a close game against Pitt, putting its postseason aspirations in risk.
However, the Mountaineers, led by the emergence of No. 2 pitcher Chris Enochs, traveled to South Bend, Indiana, and swept a double-header against Notre Dame before sweeping Connecticut to qualify for the Big East Tournament.
West Virginia maintained its momentum with non-conference victory over Richmond and St. Louis before opening the significant East Tournament with a pair of significant wins. WVU defeated Notre Dame in a 10-8 slugfest, and Enochs practically no-hit Rutgers in game two to advance to the winner’s bracket.
A lengthy weather delay that necessitated the St. John’s game to be completed the next day gave WVU the extra day it needed to bring Enochs back in relief and secure its lone Big East Tournament title two days later.
West Virginia concluded the season winning 11 of its last 13 games to advance to the NCAA regionals, where it defeated Tennessee and Georgia Southern in its first two games.
Mazey is familiar with the Mountaineers because he coached them at Charleston Southern.
Mazey has directed seven teams to the NCAA regionals, including three at West Virginia in 2017, 2019, and 2023.
He feels he has another club capable of reaching that level this season.
“When you are with them every day sometimes it’s hard to look at our team objectively,” Mazey said. “There hasn’t been a coach we’ve played a series against who hasn’t approached me and said something like, ‘You guys have a good team.'” When other people say that about you, you may not see what they see on the exterior.
“Enough people have told me that now that I’m starting to believe them,” he went on to say.
The 1996 squad got hot at the perfect time, and Mazey believes last weekend’s three-game sweep of Baylor will serve as the trigger for another remarkable season-ending run this year.
