MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia’s first impression was a strong one, with the Mountaineers sweeping a three-game set at Georgia Southern over a 24-hour stretch that landed the Mountaineers a No. 25 national rankings in the D1Baseball.com Top 25 Poll.
Victories over the Eagles came in different fashion for West Virginia. The Mountaineers overcame separate two-run deficits in Friday’s season opener, and scored six runs in the sixth inning to build a five-run advantage en route to a 15-3 victory.
In Game 2 on Saturday (the first of a doubleheader that day), WVU put up a seven spot in the first inning, and led 10-4 in the middle of the fourth. Georgia Southern, however, was even at 10 in the bottom of the seventh and had the go-ahead run in scoring position before pitcher Chase Meyer recorded two strikeouts to help keep the game knotted. The next inning, Gavin Kelly belted a one-out double and stole third with two outs, leading to a throwing error that allowed him to score what amounted to the winning run in an 11-10 triumph.
“In the moment, you’d have less gray hair if you cruised to every victory, but probably the reality of playing these games is you have to go through some of that,” WVU head coach Steve Sabins said. “You have to be thrown into the fire and see how players respond and it gives you an opportunity to continue putting your foot on the gas. We asked a lot of those starters to stay in and find a way to win the game and eventually, it was Gavin Kelly stealing third with two outs on his own, because he had signaled to me that he had the pitcher picked as far as feeling confident he’d be able to steal third. A really risky play when you’re already in scoring position, because if you get thrown out at the third and end the inning with an opportunity to go ahead, it would be viewed as an unintelligent coaching decision. You also can’t win games if you’re trying to not lose games.”
WVU completed the series sweep later Saturday with a 5-2 win highlighted by six strong innings from starting pitcher Dawson Montesa and a solo home run from Matthew Graveline, who also drew a run-scoring walk in the seventh to put the Mountaineers in front for good.
Montesa was one of two Division II transfers (Chansen Cole the other) to start on the mound for the Mountaineers among three that pitched multiple innings as Ian Korn logged four frames in relief in the first game of the doubleheader.
“Dawson Montesa certainly had the best start this weekend. He was really competitive,” Sabins said. “He found his curve ball in the third inning and was able to really pitch off that and that helped play up his fastball a little bit.”
The three-run win was also highlighted by a seven-pitch save from freshman David Perez, who threw only strikes on all seven pitches and struck out a pair.
To say Perez, labeled the top shortstop prospect from Pennsylvania by Perfect Game, made a strong impression Sabins would be putting it mildly.
“That was so cool,” Sabins said. “That’s the best freshman first inning I’ve ever seen.”
With Sunday and Monday to recover, the Mountaineers will scrimmage Tuesday “primarily with all of the guys that didn’t pitch over the weekend to keep them fresh,” according to Sabins.
West Virginia next plays Friday at Liberty for the first of a three-game set. The Flames won two of three against The Citadel in their opening series.
“We have the pieces to be great, but we’re certainly not even close to being good enough to do what we want to do this year,” Sabins said. “A lot of growth and work has to happen for us to be great and we’re not close to that yet. For them, it’s the same stuff of concentrating on the process and making sure we’re focused on getting better. Now West Virginia baseball is watched, listened to and evaluated. [It’s getting] our kids to understand that none of that staff really means anything, it’s whether we think we’re playing good baseball and putting ourselves in position to be successful.”