Texas losses put damper on Big 12 title

WVU came into the series with its highest ranking in the school’s 126-year baseball history, sitting sixth in the nation and believing it needed only one win to clinch hosting an NCAA Regional.

That one victory, as it turned out, would have made them lone champions of the Big 12, but they never gave themself a chance and wound up as part of a threesome that will share the championship, Texas and Oklahoma State also owning 15-9 conference records. WVU finished the regular season at 39-16 while Texas is 38-18.

The Longhorns lay claim to the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament, which begins Wednesday at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.

WVU goes in seeded third with Oklahoma State, which lost two of three to WVU during the regular season, is the second seed.

Texas dominance of all three games was complete as they jumped all over WVU early and never really let them back into any game.

In the first two innings of the three games Texas outscored WVU 18-1 as they went on to score 29 runs in the three games — just shy of 10 per game — while WVU could combine for only 9 runs in the entire series.

What the Longhorns did to the WVU starting pitching would be a felony if done out on the streets of Austin.

In those first two innings combined — six innings in all — they scored 18 runs, hitting .571 with 20 hits in 35 at bats.

Three of the hits were doubles and four home runs. The team’s slugging percentage early in those three games was .914 and the on base percentage was .643 as they also drew four walks and were hit by 3 pitches, even getting on base via a catcher’s interference call.

Certainly, it took some of the luster off the feat that was accomplished, a WVU selected to finish sixth in the coaches’ preseason poll tying for the league championship.

Prior to the final game, coach Randy Mazey left no doubt that he would not let the outcome destroy what his team had pulled off.

“Our motto when we got together with the team at the beginning of the year was let’s try to do something that’s never ever been done before,” he said.

He added that he had stressed to the team heading into the season that the conference title would be up for grabs.

And he was right. Led by a hitting machine who was second baseman JJ Weatherholt, WVU consistently marched through the season, never losing three games in a row until the Texas series and winning six of the first seven Big 12 series, the only loss before Texas was to lowly Kansas.

Mazey was disappointed, yes, but he wasn’t going to let the glow of a championship dissipate in defeat.

Speaking on his pregame radio interview, Mazey answered a question about what it meant.

“I don’t know if I can speak for all 1.8 million West Virginians when I answer this question. I don’t know if they all are West Virginia baseball fans but the ones that are, this has to be pretty special,” he said. “The people close to the program have to understand how hard that is to do. In our sport against the schools we are competing against, where we are it’s amazing to hear those words come out of your mouth.

“The programs we finished ahead of and their traditions — TCU, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State. We finished ahead of those guys and we have a chance to win this thing. It’s so, so hard to do. There’s a ton of reasons why it happens, but it’s super difficult.”

And Texas saw to come came time that could not feed off having already clinched a share of the title coming into the game, scoring four in the game and driving Mazey’s top pitcher, Ben Hampton, from the game after just one out and facing only six batters.

While the WVU bullpen kept Texas in check for most of the rest of the way, the WVU offense never really could mount any kind of rally and fittingly enough, the game ended on a double play with Wetherholt waiting in the on-deck circle.