WVU defeats Ohio in home opener, gives Sabins win in his home debut
Trending
MORGANTOWN -- Eight-and-oh, 55 degrees for a home opener on February 25 in Morgantown, West Virginia?
What kind of baseball season is this?
Don't know what's happening, but the baseball gods seem to be smiling upon Steve Sabins, who managed and won his first game as Mountaineer baseball coach at home with 2,055 fans in the stands and his former boss, Randy Mazey, on hand for the occasion.
No one really expected weather like they had as they beat Ohio U., 8-5.
"I don't think it's ever been this nice. Usually it's 30 degrees and snowing," said first baseman Grant Hussey, the veteran first baseman who is the school's all-time home run leader, who celebrated it all with an opposite field shot and another hit to break out of an early-season that had his average down under .150.
"It definitely felt good to be putting the barrel on the ball again," Hussey said. "I haven't had the best start this season, but baseball is a streaky game, and seeing one go out is something to start with for sure."
As for the crowd?
"We sold a record number of season tickets so you know people are going to be there no matter what," Hussey said.
What's transpired to date has been unlike anything any of them have seen. To win your first 8 games of the year, a northern team, hasn't been seen around here in quite a while. You had to go back to 1969 to find the last time the team won just its first four games. That was a team coached by Dale Ramsburg and WVU only played 19 games in the season.
And if you're thinking records, you have a while to wait before talking about it. In fact, you have to go back to 1964 when Lyndon Johnson was President and you will find that the Mountaineers opened that season 18-0.
But they will enjoy this while it lasts. Certainly Sabins will, especially now that he has a home win under his belt.
"Always fun to be in front of your home crowd for the first time every season; the energy was electric," Sabins said.
And this game wasn't handed to him. He had to manage to get it. Certainly, you don't have many wins that come in a game where you used eight pitchers.
Sabins had started freshman Mac Stiffler, making his WVU debut.
"Super proud of Mac today in his first start at the collegiate level," Sabins said. "And all of our pitchers we used today. We have youth at the position and gave some guys the ball today who haven't seen action yet, and they performed well, and we liked what we saw."
For the most part, the pitching staff has carried the Mountaineers this far. It has one of the lowest earned run averages in college baseball, even though it is a mostly new staff patched together with transfers and freshmen, and it has not exactly had big time control from the mound.
But when it needed outs it has gotten them, as it did in this victory over Ohio.
"Walks definitely aren't what you want but pitchers are making good pitches in critical situations and getting double plays," Sauve said. "Anytime you get two outs on one pitch, that's always a good thing. We've had a lot of that lately."
Including in the eighth inning when the Bobcats had a run in, runners at first and third with one out and were threatening to put together a big inning. That's when reliever Tyler Hudson served up a double play ground ball to get out of the final jam in the game.