WVU’s baseball team continues its superb start to the season

MORGANTOWN — In the end, any team is judged on wins and losses and right now no team in America is winning more and losing less than the West Virginia University’s baseball team that finished off a sweep of the Cincinnati Bearcats, 10-5, on Saturday afternoon and will take Easter Sunday off to reflect on the accomplishments they have been stringing together.

The victory was the Mountaineers’ 14th in succession, which is difficult to imagine on any level, but it comes in a season that opened with 13 wins in a row.

The 13 weren’t taken seriously by any pollsters, who figured it was more of a reflection on the quality of the teams they were playing rather than on the quality of play they were producing.

But this isn’t a non-conference series of games against lower-level opponents. They are in the heart of the Big 12 season and the 34-4 record they now sport is not a distorted reflection of their abilities.

But if you go to their coach, Steve Sabins, who has picked up where Randy Mazey left off when he retired last year and kept the ball rolling uphill for the program, what makes this group special isn’t what they are accomplishing but how they are going about it.

He spoke of that on Friday night after taking the second of the three-game sweep over Cincinnati.

“They are a process-oriented group that I think feels they are on a mission to do something special,” Sabins said. “We don’t talk a lot about the wins, but we talk about why we are winning games. That’s been the focus. We’re winning games because we’re making plays and making good pitches and making good reads and have a good approach.

“If you lose games, it’s because you don’t do that. It’s a reminder that you don’t win because you are so good or super talented. You won because (first baseman Grant) Hussey made a good play on defense or (outfielder Jace) Rinehart hit a fastball up the middle or scooped a slider for a homer or (catcher) Logan Sauve had a great at bat where he hit a two-strike home run.”

They had done all of that in the Friday win and did more of the same on Saturday.

“You are winning because of the individual efforts inside the game,” Sabins went on. “I think it’s easy for you to fall in love with yourself and become complacent. We’re not winning because we’re so much better or talented. That’s not the case. There are so many talented teams in this league. Those kids bought into what we’re doing and work every day to get better.”

The point Sabins is stressing and that his team is accepting goes against what you think young, talented athletes would accept as they succeed. It’s terribly easy to believe your press clippings or to take the cheers from the ballpark home with you when things are going good, but the best way for them to turn bad is to take that as the only reality there is in your world.

In the most recent games, WVU has won but has not done so as crisply as it could, struggling with Ohio State and the first couple of games with Cincinnati.

“I think over the last few games we have been good, but not great. I think the kids have enough feel to know that and aren’t saying ‘Coach is being a jerk wanting us to do better.’ I think they know they can lock down their at bats a little bit more or can field the ball a little bit better.

“That’s different. That’s hard to teach but I think it is a special aspect of this group.”

If you can take a .300 hitter and convince him that he can hit .330; if you can take a pitcher with a good fastball and convince him to have confidence in his slider … if you can do that you keep them from feeling as though they have reached their limits.

That’s what is necessary from here on out to win the Big 12, to play at your best in the Big 12 Tournament, to win a regional, go on to a Super Regional and even to your first College World Series in Omaha.

When you have done that, then you can know that you have experienced something so few people or athletes experience, true success.