Country roads and things of such nature
Around this time last summer, a scrappy LSU baseball team that finished 13-17 in SEC play was two outs away from not only advancing to a Super Regional, but more than likely hosting one.
It ultimately wasn’t meant to be as LSU couldn’t finish off the Chapel Hill Regional hosting Tar Heels of North Carolina, and UNC got to stay home and host a Super Regional the following weekend. As fate would have it, the team that LSU could have hosted then is the same team that the Tigers will be hosting this weekend at Alex Box Stadium: the West Virginia Mountaineers.
West Virginia
2025 Record: 44-14 (19-9)
RPI Ranking: 26
SOS Ranking: 93
Quadrant Results: Q1 (8-5), Q2 (11-6), Q3 (14-3), Q4 (11-0)
Staff ERA: 4.35
Team Batting Average: .299
Team Fielding: .969
It’s not a stretch to say the past two years have been some of the most successful in Mountaineer history. West Virginia’s won its first ever Regional in program history last season and are back this year after sweeping through the Clemson Regional. The Neers have gone 6-0 in Regional games the past two years, and they’re looking to advance to Omaha for the first time ever.
Steve Sabins has led West Virginia to a program-record 44 wins in his first year on the job. Randy Mazey retired following the 2024 season after 12 years of getting the Mountaineers back to national relevancy, and Sabins has built upon that foundation.
Sabins and his team won its first-ever outright Big 12 championship this season, finishing a game ahead of Kansas in the final standings. It could have been more lopsided but West Virginia stumbled down the stretch, losing six of its final seven games including getting swept at home by the Jayhawks. West Virginia went 1-1 in the Big 12 Tournament, beating Cincinatti 10-3 in the quarterfinal round, but got blasted by Arizona 12-1 in the semifinals.
But Sabins and company fixed whatever issues they had prior to the NCAAs starting and his squad went a perfect 3-0 in Clemson last weekend. They won a couple of nail biters against Kentucky (4-3 in the opening game and 13-12 in the championship game) and sandwiched in was them banishing the hosting Tigers to the loser’s bracket with a 9-6 win.
There’s not a lot of power in this West Virginia lineup (55 home runs, and only one player with double-digit homers on the year), but they do have a lot of guys who know how to get on base. The Mountaineers have 11 players hitting at least .275, and their top-five are batting .313 or better. The team .299 batting average ranked third in the Big 12, and they also ranked fourth in on base percentage (.396). They won’t strike out a lot either, so be prepared to see a lot of balls put into play.
Sam White leads West Virginia with a .352 batting average and 64 hits. Despite winning the league, West Virginia only had one position player earn First-Team All-Big 12 honors, that being catcher Logan Sauve, who’s hitting .289 this season with eight home runs and 36 RBI.
The two biggest bats in West Virginia are Kyle West and Jace Rinehart. West leads West Virginia in home runs (10), slugging (.607), and OPS (1.107), while Rinehart is second in all three categories. Rinehart leads the team with 21 doubles and 51 RBI, and the duo each have tallied 105 bases this season.
Likley pitching opposite of Kade Anderson will be Griffin Kirn who is 5-2 with a 3.13 ERA. Kirn’s pitched into the seventh in each of his last five starts, and they turned to him to pitch the ninth inning of the Regional Championship against Kentucky. Kirn’s got 100 Ks in 95 innings this season and opponents are hitting .237 against him.
What’s interesting about West Virginia is they don’t have a starter nearly as effective as Kirn. Gavin Van Kempen has started 13 times this season, but has only logged 39.2 innings this season. He hasn’t been great in those 13 starts with an ERA north of six and a 1.69 WHIP. What’s more, in nine Big 12 appearances his ERA is 7.66 and the WHIP is up to 1.99.
Should a third game be necessary, I’d assume West Virginia would turn to Jack Kartsonas and his incredible Fu Manchu.
Photo by John Byrum/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
While he’s appeared mostly out of the bullpen this season, Kartsonas has started eight times and has the second most innings pitched behind Kirn. He went 6-3 this year with a 2.94 ERA and earned Second-Team All-Big 12 honors.
Much like LSU, West Virginia’s bullpen is suspect. Reese Bassinger has been WVU’s top bullpen arm (29 appearances, 61 innings) but has a 4.28 ERA. The only two Mountaineer pitchers who have appeared in at least 20 games are Chase Meyer and Carson Estridge and they have ERAs of 4.09 and 6.14 respectively.
What’s interesting about this Mountaineer team is that while they do a lot of small things well, for whatever reason they’re pretty poor defensively. Overall West Virginia fielded .969 (LSU by comparison is fielding a school-record .982 this year) and the Neers committed nine errors in the Clemson Regional. West Virginia’s home stadium capacity is 3,500 and fielded .969 this year; they spent last weekend in Clemson’s stadium (capacity of 6,200) and committed nine errors. Now they’re heading to Alex Box Stadium which can, quite literally, hold twice as many people as Clemson’s park.
We’ve seen lots of teams wilt under the lights of Alex Box Stadium, and while I’ve got a lot of love for our friends over at Smoking Musket, I’m not sure this Mountaineer baseball team is ready for what they’re about to walk into this weekend.