OMAHA, Neb. — It’s not the preferred path, but one West Virginia has navigated before.
With Sunday’s 5-2 loss to North Carolina, the Mountaineers are on the brink of elimination and assured of one more game at 1 p.m. (CST) Tuesday against a familiar foe in Troy.
The winner would then face the Tar Heels on Wednesday and need two victories in as many days before one loss against the No. 5 national seed for a spot in the MCWS Finals.
“I really do think we’re one of the toughest teams in the country,” said relief pitcher Reese Bassinger, who worked a scoreless eighth against UNC. “That’s why we do what we do in the fall. It wouldn’t be a Mountaineer weekend if we didn’t bounce back from a loss. That’s what we’ve learned to do and learned to accept. I feel pretty good about it. Troy is a tough team, so just making sure we’re focused on them before we look ahead to another game that’s not there yet.”
West Virginia (46-16) has lost consecutively twice this season — on March 1 when Columbia claimed the series opener in Granville after the Mountaineers dropped a series finale at Kennesaw State, and again in late April over the final two contests of a three-game set at Cincinnati.
Two weeks ago, WVU was staring elimination squarely in the face after an 11-9 loss to Kentucky in its second game of the Morgantown Regional. The next day, the Mountaineers topped Wake Forest, 10-5, and that night, they produced one of the more memorable wins in program history with five runs in the ninth inning to rally past the Wildcats, 11-9.
In the winner-take-all matchup with UK that followed, West Virginia squandered a four-run lead in the eighth before prevailing 6-5 in 10 innings to qualify for the Super Regional round.
The win over the Demon Deacons and two triumphs against Kentucky came over a 32-hour stretch and without a day off after being upended by the Wildcats.
“Anything can happen at any point,” WVU third baseman Tyrus Hall said. “I have full belief that our team can come out and win.”
Monday is an off day for West Virginia and Troy (39-31) alike, which avoided elimination in the first MCWS game Sunday by overcoming a four-run deficit to defeat Ole Miss, 12-8.
Outside of Big 12 Pitcher of the Year Maxx Yehl, who suffered the tough-luck loss Sunday despite a strong seven-inning outing, the Mountaineers should have every pitcher available for at least somewhat extended work come Tuesday.
Yehl threw 109 pitches Sunday and Bassinger 15. In the Mountaineers’ 7-5 victory against Troy in Friday’s MCWS opener, starting pitcher Chansen Cole threw 52 pitches while struggling over 2.2 innings of work. Ian Korn then stabilized things and then some with six strong innings and 79 pitches, before giving way to reliever Ben McDougal, who fired three pitches and recorded the final out.
What direction WVU coach Steve Sabins chooses to go in for his team’s second matchup with the Trojans remains to be seen and settled on.
“In the regional setting, you have to figure that out very quickly,” Sabins said. “We have a little bit of time to do that. So we’ll have practice [Monday] and decide who the starter is.”
Dawson Montesa led the way in the win over Wake Forest and came back the next night to pitch sparingly in relief against UK, and has yet to toe the rubber in Omaha. That also applies to experienced reliever Carson Estridge and David Hagen, who routinely started midweek games along with the two-run win against Kentucky.
“We have great arms,” Sabins said. “Estridge has thrown a ton for us. Montesa has thrown a ton for us. McDougal threw five innings for the regional. Cole didn’t have a very long outing [Friday], and Cole is really good, obviously. Troy got him a little bit, but my bet is they wouldn’t have the same amount of success, just because Cole can make adjustments and is a great pitcher.
“But great options. We have guys that haven’t thrown a ton in the last two weeks, just because usually pitching staffs this time of year shrink down to maybe eight guys. And then you start seeing some other rosters, and pitching staffs get shrunk down to about three, four guys, maybe, even in this event.”
Any pitcher taking the mound Tuesday will almost certainly have to be at his best to limit the Trojans.
Troy has 91 runs in nine NCAA Tournament games and 130 runs over the last 14 contests starting with the Sun Belt Conference Tournament. The Trojans have scored at least nine runs in nine of those 14 games and the five the Trojans scored last Friday against WVU are tied for their second-fewest over that time.
“With what [Maxx] was able to do for us,” Bassinger said, “looking forward, that puts us in a good spot even though we did lose, because we have a whole bullpen left.”