Latest news with #Mountaineers
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Berlin's bats leads team to District V title
CLAYSBURG (WTAJ) — After dodging raindrops all week long, districts V, VI and IX finally put to bed their district tournaments. Friday's 8-6 Mountaineers win in the 1A softball championship was the final piece to the puzzle. After falling behind early, Berlin's bats came in clutch with key hits throughout. In the sixth, up 4-3, Elena Richey delivered a grand slam giving the Mountaineers some cushion as they'd go up 8-3. In the seventh, Fannett Metal got a couple home in the final frame, but it was the Mountaineers winning their 19th game, and taking the district crown. Next up for Berlin-Brothersvalley, and all area teams still alive, is the PIAA State tournament. Below is a list of baseball and softball district champions in districts V, VI and IX. DISTIRCT VSoftball 1A Berlin-Brothersvalley2A Chestnut Ridge1A Southern Fulton2A Tussey Mountain3A Bedford (District 5/8/94A Punxsutawney (District 5/9) DISTRICT VISoftball Champions1A Claysburg-Kimmel2A West Shamokin3A Bald Eagle4A Bellefonte5A Central Mountain6A State College 1A Homer Center2A Mount Union3A Forest Hills4A Bellefonte5A Central Mountain6A State College DISTRICT IX1A Dubois Central Catholic2A Cranberry 3A St. Marys4A Punxsutawney 1A Dubois Central Catholic2A Redbank Valley3A Bedford (District 5/8/9)4A Punxsutawney (District 5/9) Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
a day ago
- Sport
Kresser, Guzman combine for 9th inning run and West Virginia tops Kentucky 4-3 in Clemson Regional
CLEMSON, S.C. -- Brodie Kresser doubled leading off the ninth inning and scored on a sacrifice fly by Armani Guzman to lift West Virginia to a 4-3 win over Kentucky in the Clemson Regional on Friday. Kresser advanced to third on a passed ball before Guzman sent a soft liner into center field. Griffin Cameron made a diving catch but by the time he got up and fired home, Kresser scored easily. The Mountaineers (42-14), who set a program record for wins, play No. 11 overall seed Clemson or South Carolina Upstate in a winner's game Saturday. The Wildcats (29-25) will play the loser in an elimination game. Kentucky got three runs in the fourth, but West Virginia tied it in the sixth. Both scored a pair of unearned runs on throwing errors. Reese Bassinger (7-1) got the final five outs for the win in relief of Griffin Kirn, who gave up five hits with five strikeouts. Guzman, the No. 9 hitter, had two hits. Simon Gregersen (0-6) pitched two perfect innings in relief before giving up Kresser's double and was replaced by Jackson Nove. Starter Ben Cleaver went six innings with six hits and five strikeouts.
Dominion Post
2 days ago
- Sport
- Dominion Post
Steve Sabins' path to WVU baseball coach took patience, leap of faith
MORGANTOWN — It wasn't exactly a journey of 1,000 decisions that guided Steve Sabins to West Virginia. Rest assured, there were plenty of steps the WVU baseball coach took that ultimately brought him to Morgantown. Others were made for him. There was one instance where he was given the opportunity to back out. In a sort of leap of faith, Sabins also passed up his first opportunity to become a head coach in 2023 in order to stay with the Mountaineers as a head coach in waiting. Such is the way of life for any college assistant coach who is looking to become a head coach. It is a nomad's journey, one where families are uprooted and moved from one side of the country to the other for the next climb up the ladder. Or maybe it's more like the old TV show 'Quantum Leap,' where Sam Beckett continually traveled through time with the hope the next leap would be the leap home. Sabins' journey has now taken him to his first NCAA tournament as a head coach in what was his first season since taking over the program for longtime coach Randy Mazey. The 24th-ranked Mountaineers (41-14) will play Kentucky (29-24) at noon Friday in the opening round of the Clemson, S.C. Regional with either Clemson or USC Upstate waiting on Saturday. 'If you get in the tournament, you've got a shot,' Sabins said. 'That's all you could ever ask for in this world.' As an example of just how interesting life's twists and turns can be, Sabins' shot nearly came at a number of different schools. If you reach Sabins' coaching history, it is rather short compared to so many others. He worked his way up the assistant ranks at Oklahoma State for four years. 'I was a volunteer coach at Oklahoma State, so I was on camp money,' Sabins recalled. 'I was working in the batting cage with seven-year olds trying to pay bills. My wife floated us with a real job.' He then came to WVU as an assistant under Mazey in 2016. 'Mazey tried to scare me away from not taking the job,' Sabins said. 'He was like, 'It snows here. You and your wife are going to have babies and you're going to be pushing a stroller in the snow.' He tried to scare the hell out of me.' Turns out pushing a stroller in the snow still beats working with young campers in the batting cage. 'I told him I would take a Big 12 job if it was in Iraq,' Sabins said. 'This was a dream come true for me.' It could have been so much different. West Virginia was not the first job Sabins applied for. He admits now that he wasn't even Mazey's first choice as an assistant coach back in 2016. 'I interviewed for a job at Loyola Marymount. I interviewed for a job at Appalachian State,' Sabins said. 'Randy saw something in me, but there was another assistant at the time who turned the job down first. A million things had to happen for the job to fall to me basically.' It would be easy to say the rest is history, except Sabins could very well have been the head coach at Cincinnati this season rather than at WVU. The Bearcats gave him his first offer to be a head coach in 2023. 'That was insane,' Sabins said. 'It was the most tight, tense, high-pressured and high-leveraged situation I had ever been in,' Sabins said. 'Ultimately I was extremely thankful for Cincinnati and extremely thankful for West Virginia. Cincinnati was gracious enough to think I could lead their program. 'When you're an assistant coach and you have to provide for your family, the difference between a five-year contract and a one-year contract is very different.' Mazey had previously expressed an interest in retiring, but there were no guarantees. 'It was a mentally taxing time,' Sabins said. Mazey and WVU athletic director Wren Baker — 'Within a 24-hour period after the offer from Cincinnati,' Sabins recalled. — put together a plan that Mazey would coach the 2024 season and Sabins would take over the Mountaineers in 2025. 'For me it was great,' Sabins said. 'I tell recruits all the time and talk about delayed gratification. I wanted to be a head coach and make a good salary, but I essentially turned down a head-coaching salary to wait a year to take this one. 'That's a lot of money and a lot of risk and things can change and stuff can happen.' He felt confident in his decision, Sabins said, because of the nine years he had already spent in Morgantown building and recruiting. 'I loved this place,' Sabins said. 'I recruited the players, and I thought we could win at a high level.' WVU vs. KENTUCKY WHEN: Noon, Friday WHERE: Doug Kingsmore Stadium, Clemson, S.C. TV: ESPNU (Comcast 266, HD 853; DirecTV 208; DISH 141) RADIO: 100.9 FM WEB:
Dominion Post
2 days ago
- Sport
- Dominion Post
COLUMN: A year later, WVU has the same motivation that carried it to 2024 regional title
MORGANTOWN — The first point that needs to get across about the Clemson, S.C. Regional that the 24th-ranked WVU baseball team is set to open at noon Friday with a first-round game against Kentucky is that no one in the region is even close to being thought of as unbeatable. That includes No. 12 Clemson, the top seed and the host team in the regional. The Tigers enter the NCAA tournament having got banged around by North Carolina, 14-4, in the ACC tournament title game. The last time the Tigers (44-16) played inside Doug Kingsmore Stadium, Duke took two of three against them. Kentucky (29-24) has lost four straight heading into the NCAA tournament and eight of its last 12. Granted, some of those defeats came against teams seemingly from the American League Central — based on the Wildcats' strength of schedule rating — but no one is comparing this Kentucky team to its 2024 version, when the Wildcats advanced to the College World Series. USC Upstate? Well, the Spartans (36-23) won the Big South and have won six in a row, but they are the long shot and were shut out by Clemson, 7-0, earlier in the season. Which brings us to WVU (41-14), which has spent the last portion of the season proving just how beatable it is. After a 34-4 start, the Mountaineers were once on pace to approach a 50-win season. Now, WVU is a 50-50 shot just to reach 42. If the Mountaineers were a stock, there wouldn't be a lot of buyers at the moment, which brings us to the point they know how this feels. They were in the exact same rut last season, having taken a quick exit from the Big 12 tournament and looking every bit like a team that had no gas remaining in the tank. And then WVU traveled across the country and won the Tucson, Ariz. Regional. 'We just had fun,' was how WVU outfielder Kyle West attempted to explain the quick turnaround. 'We acted like monkeys. We went and watched one of the 'Planet of the Apes' movies. We just carried all the fun we had off the field onto the field and just played for one another, because we didn't want it to end.' Now, one can make the argument that WVU won that regional last season without having to play host Arizona, which was upset in the opening game by Grand Canyon. True, but the Mountaineers also won that regional with its star player — J.J. Wetherholt — batting .250 and not getting a single base hit until the third game. 'We knew that for some people, it was going to be their last games,' West continued. 'For the whole team, it was going to be our last time as that team. Going into it, we were just trying to play for as long as possible to remain with each other.' West's words ring even more true a year later. Despite the rough finish, this is a team that brought another level of national respect to the WVU baseball program. It's the first WVU team to surpass 40 wins. It won a Big 12 regular-season championship. And there are a ton of guys in the starting lineup who are likely not going to be back next season, whether that's through graduation, the MLB draft or otherwise. In a WVU uniform all at the same time, this regional may represent the final time we see West, as well as teammates Grant Hussey, Sam White, Logan Sauve, Skylar King, Jace Rineart, Griffin Kirn, Jack Kartsonas and Carson Estridge. Not to look ahead, but that's a lot of starters WVU head coach Steve Sabins must replace next season. It's also a ton of guys who may not want this season to simply end in South Carolina. If the feeling of togetherness was enough motivation to write one heck of a story in 2024, it's definitely there again in 2025. 'Anybody can win any given day,' West said. 'It doesn't matter who you are or what your record is. You just have to play your best baseball every time you step on the field and give yourself a chance to win. 'It doesn't matter if you're a No. 1 seed or a No. 4 seed, anyone can win it.'
Dominion Post
3 days ago
- Sport
- Dominion Post
NOTEBOOK: State natives played a major role in No. 24 WVU's baseball success this season
MORGANTOWN — Kyle West's recollection of his conversation with WVU baseball coach went back to the old days. Well, maybe they weren't the old days, but certainly they were different from the current state of the program. 'He was telling me there was a time when you couldn't pay 4,000 people to come watch a game here,' the WVU outfielder recalled. 'Now, we're playing in front of 4,000 people every game.' There is a great sense of pride in West, a native of Hedgesville, in playing some type of role in the Mountaineers' climb into national respectability. He was second on the team with 14 home runs a season ago when WVU advanced to its first-ever super regional. West leads the 24th-ranked Mountaineers this season with a .354 batting average, as WVU (41-14) prepares to face Kentucky in the opening round of the NCAA tournament, at noon Friday. 'As a West Virginia native, being able to play in a postseason atmosphere for this state and this community, it means a lot to a lot of people,' he said. That would include many of his teammates who are also West Virginia natives, as the Mountaineers will travel to the Clemson, S.C. Regional with a roster armed with impact players from around the state. Former Parkersburg South star Grant Hussey is the school's all-time home run leader with 44. Mannington native Jace Rineart leads the Mountaineers with 50 RBIs. Ben McDougal (Bridgeport) will likely see action as a reliever, while Bryant Yoak (Big Bend) has appeared in 13 games as a relief pitcher this season. 'The pride I carry is immense,' West said. 'It's not every day you get to play for your home state. I think it's one of the most important things I've done in my career.' The Clemson Regional has other ties to the state, as well. USC Upstate freshman relief pitcher Cayden Mackey is a former Parkersburg South standout. Former Morgantown High standout Ryan Fluharty also played at USC Upstate, but entered the transfer portal and is no longer with the Spartans. WVU also has local ties on its roster who will be making a trip home to play in the regional. Center fielder Skylar King is a Columbia, S.C. native, who was once ranked the No. 19 prospect out of the state when he signed with the Mountaineers. WVU outfielder Ben Lumsden will be closer to home. His hometown of Simpsonville is located just 47 miles from Clemson's campus. Of the four teams — WVU, Clemson, Kentucky and USC Upstate —in the regional, Clemson center fielder Cam Cannarella stands out above the rest when it comes to the 2025 MLB draft. The junior is the only player on any of the rosters ranked among the top 150 prospects for the draft. He's ranked No. 34 overall by ESPN and 38th overall by Cannarella, the 2023 ACC Freshman of the Year, leads the Tigers with a .339 batting average. He also has three home runs and driven in 45 RBIs. He's also known for his defensive abilities, including over-the-shoulder catches on deeply-hit fly balls. 'He's fiery, he's composed, he's elite defensively, and he's still developing,' Clemson head coach Erik Bakich said. 'Cam makes winning plays. Period.' It takes three wins to advance out of regional play, which may set up WVU's largest pitching hurdle. Outside of starter Griffin Kirn, the Mountaineers have found little consistency elsewhere lately. Kirn, a senior lefty who pitched at the Division II level last season, is the only WVU starter to register a win over the Mountaineers' last nine games. That win came against Cincinnati in the Big 12 tournament. Other than that, you'd have to go back to WVU's 5-0 win against Texas Tech on May 4 to find the last time a WVU starting pitcher notched a victory. Jack Kartsonas was WVU's starter in the Big 12 semifinal loss against Arizona, but he's struggled as of late and allowed 10 runs over his last three starts. 'I think Kartsonas has really stabilized himself as the No. 2 starter,' WVU head coach Steve Sabins said. 'He's older. He's a veteran and competes at a really high level. I feel comfortable with Kartsonas and Kirn.' Kirn will likely get the start against the Wildcats (29-24). 'As a coach, when you make decisions, it feels like a lot of times it comes down to who are you willing to lose with?' Sabins continued. 'I'm willing to lose with both of those guys.' If the Mountaineers were to advance to a third game, it would likely be a pitcher-by-committee type of game. The good news is relief pitcher Carson Estridge is set to return for the NCAA tournament after not being eligible to pitch in the Big 12 tournament. Estridge is 3-1 with five saves this season, but has also struggled late, allowing 10 runs over his last four appearances. The news is not so good for starting pitcher Gavin Van Kempen, who has been dealing with shoulder soreness. 'He's working to get ready for the regional, I just don't know if that's a realistic possibility or not,' Sabins said. 'He appears to be further away than Estridge. I just don't feel good where GVK would be at.'
