MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Multi-game losing streaks are commonplace in baseball. They’re part of what makes baseball a different sport than the rest. A five-game losing streak on the diamond often does not carry the same weight as a five-game losing streak on the gridiron, the soccer pitch, or even the hardwood.
West Virginia (39-18) is enduring one such streak, the first of its kind for the program since April 25-May 2, 2021.
The last two weeks have changed the public perception of the team, which was having one of the best seasons in program history. The still-historic season will continue next week in the NCAA Tournament.
Despite his team being outscored by a combined 25 runs during the losing streak, Randy Mazey remains optimistic his team can make some noise in the national tournament.
“(Oklahoma State head coach Josh Holliday) told me the same thing, he said our team is as built to win a regional (as any),” Mazey said on Thursday, just a few days removed from being named Big 12 Coach of the Year. “I think we are. If we get good starts like we’ve been all year, we’re very capable on offense. JJ [Wetherholt] had a good game, got a couple hits today, and was on base all day long. That’s a really good sign for us.”
Mazey doesn’t have to look far to find reasons for optimism.
He still has the same roster that won a program-record 39 regular season games and 15 Big 12 contests. It’s still the same roster that, as recently as May 17, compared favorably to other teams ranked inside the Top 10 of that week’s D1Baseball.com Top 25 poll. And yes, it’s the same roster that has a semifinalist for the Golden Spikes Award in Wetherholt.
Mazey can also look back to the last time his team played in the NCAA Tournament.
“In 2019 When we hosted the regional, Duke came in and won that regional, and they had lost seven out of nine coming into that regional,” Mazey said in an exclusive interview with Gold and Blue Nation on the latest edition of the WVU Coaches Show.
Things were actually worse for the Blue Devils.
The 2019 Duke team, the No. 3 seed in the Morgantown Regional, lost eight of 11 games entering the NCAA Tournament. Three of those losses came to VCU and Liberty. The Blue Devils had been outscored by a combined 31 runs in the eight defeats during that stretch.
Duke then made an adjustment. The Blue Devils defeated No. 2 seed Texas A&M to open the regional. They then shut out WVU in the winners’ bracket game. A day later, they defeated the Aggies a second time to advance to a Super Regional.
“What’s happened up to this point doesn’t really matter,” Mazey added. “You just got to play well next weekend and win a series.”
WVU will learn its NCAA Tournament fate on Monday. The NCAA Baseball Tournament selection show will begin at Noon ET on ESPN2.
The Mountaineers remain a projected two seed in the Charlottesville Regional in the latest tournament projections. Play in the NCAA Tournament will begin on Friday, June 2.