Mountaineer head baseball coach Randy Mazey held an online media availability Monday afternoon leading up to West Virginia’s first Big 12 Tournament game on Tuesday.
In Mazey’s final season before retirement, he led the Mountaineers to a fourth place regular season finish in the conference, one year after a regular season title. However, the case for bigger and better has yet to be closed for Mazey’s squad. The team currently sits around the bubble line for an NCAA regional appearance and a poor outing down in Arlington could result in the Mountaineers falling out of the field.
According to Mazey though, an NCAA field without the Gold and Blue would be a mistake.
“I think we have an unbelievable case. We went 19-11 in the Big 12 and finished in fourth place. So for them to not let us in would be a crime. But they’ve committed crimes before so I won’t go to bed at night feeling all that great about it until I see the Mountaineers’ name pop up on the screen.”
With new schools added to the Big 12 last season, the format is a bit different than teams are accustomed to playing in the past. This includes the start of the tournament being a day earlier, resulting in less rest for teams and pitchers. Mazey knows it will create a heavy load for his starting pitchers to help preserve the bullpen.
“Using four or five guys a game isn’t ideal to go deep into these tournaments. You really want your starting pitching to save as many arms as they can.”
The focus for Randy Mazey this time of the year is to find ways to motivate his team to be ready to compete for tournament play. He knows how good his team is, now they just need to step up and compete.
“The message to the team this time of the year is if you are going to do anything really cool, guys have to step up that haven’t played or done much this year… Someone that we are not expecting has to be really really good.”
The Mountaineers will take on TCU in game one of the tournament, a team they just beat two out of three times to end the season. A win could provide a much needed rest for West Virginia. As a top four seed, a game one win would push off a game two until Thursday, giving the team a day of rest.
As a team that has been banged up throughout the season, Mazey’s squad will be battling two pitchers in need of rest throughout the tournament as well. Two valuable arms for the Mountaineers, Aidan Major and Gavin Van Kempen, are slowly making comebacks for the post season according to Mazey.
“We are still day-to-day with those guys. We are going to see how they feel at practice. We are going to see how they feel everyday when we go into it and see how usable they are.”
West Virginia has never won the Big 12 Tournament but Mazey believes his team has what it takes to make a run this year. He knows, however, just how good the Big 12 is this season in comparison to seasons prior and says nothing that could happen will surprise him.
“There’s not a team in here that can’t win this thing. That is the beauty of playing in the big 12”
The first pitch for West Virginia’s postseason run is set for 1:30 p.m. ET against TCU. All tournament games will be played on Globe Life Field, home of the Texas Rangers.