MORGANTOWN — To those who have had the pleasure to watch West Virginia’s JJ Wetherholt dominate the Big 12 as he became the conference’s Player of the Year, he has become the “Hit Man.”

But to the man who coached Wetherholt his final two seasons at Mars High School in Pennsylvania he is more than the “Hit Man.”

He is the “It Man.”

“He has that ‘it’ factor, if you know what I mean,” Mars coach Jason Thompson said, inferring that while Wetherholt may have built his reputation with his bat, he is much more than that on and off the field.

It’s hard to look past a .443 average with 15 home runs and 56 RBIs, but Thompson, who coincidentally was named for the former Pittsburgh Pirates’ first baseman from the early 1980s, is intent on hammering home the point that Wetherholt is the whole package.

Those who saw him play this year know this, and fans mobbed Mon County Ballpark as Manager Randy Mazey’s Mountaineers shared the Big 12 championship and received a bid into the NCAA Lexington Regional where they are with Kentucky, Ball State and their first-round opponent at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Indiana.

There are those who argue that hitting is a natural skill, but that is only part of it, as Wetherholt understands.

It’s funny if you are talking about Wetherholt as a hitter, but Thompson lets the conversation drift into other areas.

“He had some of the fastest hands on the baseball field,” Thompson said.

But, before you can ask him how that played out in his hitting, Thompson has moved on.

“I’ve seen only one ball, which took a ridiculously bad bounce, ever get by him. He was the kid you prayed every ball would be hit to. He’d make every play.”

Somewhere you will find a mention of that in the scouting reports the major league scouts do on him, but it’s hitting that has stamped him with a major league future.

“I was always a pretty decent hitter growing up. I was never crazy,” he said before heading off for Lexington. “Defense was like my thing. I was really good on defense and I was really fast. I was kind of a contact hitter and I’d steal and play pretty good defense.”

“Through high school was when my hitting started getting better and better. I started getting better than most people,” Wetherholt said. “College was like humbling last year. I had a pretty good year but it wasn’t what I was used to based on my high school years.”

His freshman year, playing with an injury and out of position, he hit .306, which is good, but as he said, not the dominance he had in high school.

“This year it kind of opened up so I could see how good I really am,” Wetherholt said. “I was given the talent, but I work pretty hard.”

Thompson verifies that.

“First off, JJ was always so dedicated,” Thompson, again drifting off into another area that separated Wetherholt from the pack. “Where we always talk to players about making sure they get to bed on time so they would be ready the next day, I remember his teammates would make fun of him because he was in bed about 9, 9:30 while other kids were still texting.

“He was so dedicated to the sport.”

OK, now about the hitting…

“He always had so much speed. Not only is he going to hit for power and hit for average, he’s going to steal tons of bases,” Thompson said.

He already has, stealing 35 of 39 attempts this year to lead the Big 12 in that department, too.

But you know the old saying, ‘You can’t steal first base’, so it is Wetherholt’s hitting ability that is the centerpiece of his game, no matter how many other areas in which he excels.

So, we steered Thompson back to how much work he put into hitting, about the way he went through batting practice pitchers.

“Obviously, any optional BP, JJ was there. JJ was with his friends hitting, on off days, on weekends, even after practice … and I know he constantly hit a lot with his father, Mike, too,” Thompson said.

They say the art of hitting is the most difficult single skill to master in all of sports and that is because you need not only such special skills of vision and hand and eye coordination, but of grooving a swing with the proper technique with reflexes to react to a 90-mile-an-hour fastball or an 84 mile-an-hour slider or a 78-mile-an-hour change up, all with movement.

It’s you against eight defenders beside the pitcher, which is probably as unfair a situation as any athlete is put into on a regular basis.

It requires a special kind of ability and all of that must be combined with an intelligence to understand what the pitcher is trying to do to get you out.

Some can do it on the eighth-grade level, some on the high school level, but to carry it into the Big 12 and grow into one of the college game’s premier hitting stars who combines it all — power, consistency, speed and, of course, luck — for once the ball leaves the bat, what happens is all out of the hitter’s control.

“It’s not surprising to hear what JJ is doing on the Big 12 level, but it is absolutely impressive,” Thompson said.

But there is that “it” factor that Thompson spoke about that ties it all together, that dedication of early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and … well a .400 hitter.

Baseball, though, is always testing you and while Wetherholt’s sophomore season was among the most spectacular in WVU history, it ended with only slump of the year.

As WVU closed the year losing three in Texas and both games in the Big 12 Tournament, the first time they lost five in a row in more than two seasons, Wetherholt went just 4 for 19, which is a .211 average and did not drive in a run.

Now he’s ready to bounce back in the NCAAs and there’s no reason to believe he won’t. He went hitless in only three games all season and in the three games following those 0-fers, he went 9 for 15, a .600 average, with 6 RBIs.

“Hitting is definitely really hard,” Wetherholt admitted. “I experienced that, my worst week of this year. That will bring me down to earth and let me realize how hard hitting a baseball really is.

“Everyone throws different pitches, It’s already hard enough. You could tell a hitter every pitch that’s coming and they’re still not going to get a hit every single time. There’s so many variables.”

But he’s had some time to rest, to think about it, to get away and do some fishing. There’s still a whole lot more left for him to accomplish this year and if he does what he wants, WVU’s baseball team figures to ride along with him.