Since joining the Big 12 for the 2013 season, WVU Baseball has seen its fair share of success.

Seven 30-win seasons and now 11 straight Big 12 Championship appearances is certainly impressive for a team just entering its second decade in the conference. Considering what WVU lacks, though, its success does not rival that of the school that joined alongside it.

In 10 completed seasons, West Virginia has zero Big 12 Championship titles. Its highest achievements are championship finals appearances in 2016 and 2019 and the regular season title in 2023, which corresponded to an 0-2 conference tournament record.

The TCU Horned Frogs do not have that problem. Since joining the Big 12 alongside West Virginia in 2013, TCU has won four conference championships to go with five NCAA Regional titles. In WVU’s infamous 2023 season, TCU won the conference and went all the way to the Men’s College World Series against Florida.

West Virginia will need to push past its current status as it takes on TCU head-to-head in the first round of this season’s Big 12 Championship at 1:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday. Even without TCU’s ultimate triumphs, West Virginia does have history it can look toward to make that happen.

2014: Upset over the Jayhawks headlines the first round

Playing in its second Big 12 Championship, the sixth-seeded Mountaineers pulled off a true upset over the third-seeded Kansas Jayhawks.

Kansas entered the conference tournament boasting a 15-9 Big 12 record and a 35-26 overall record. West Virginia fell far behind them in the win column, going 28-26 overall and 9-14 in-conference. In the regular season series less than two weeks earlier, Kansas swept the Mountaineers with scores of 5-3, 5-2, and 9-8.

The Jayhawks did not exactly lose that momentum entering the tournament, either, as they split games with Michigan before scoring nine runs again on WVU in that first round matchup. This time, though, single-digit scoring was not enough for Kansas.

After a pair of four-run innings in the fifth and sixth from Kansas, West Virginia fired back on all cylinders in the seventh. Offensively, the Mountaineers scored eight runs in the top of the inning.

WVU primarily took advantage of a Kansas pitching change that allowed four big Mountaineer hits and five runs, forcing another Jayhawk to come out of the bullpen. As Kansas’s freshman closer Stephen Villines entered the game, WVU was now down just 8-7.

On Villines’ first pitch, WVU’s own freshman, designated hitter Jackson Cramer, slammed a three-run homer for WVU’s 10th and final run. The Mountaineers secured the victory and went on to the quarterfinals, where they fell to the eventual conference champion, TCU.

2016: Mountaineers dominate Oklahoma twice and stun top seed Texas Tech for finals berth

West Virginia’s first Big 12 Championship finals appearance came in dominant fashion.

Seeded fourth with a 12-11 conference record and 36-22 overall record, WVU took on the fifth-seeded Oklahoma Sooners in round one. Oklahoma was 11-13 in-conference with a 30-27 overall record, and, in a late April series, the Sooners defeated WVU twice.

Nevertheless, WVU came out swinging- and pitching. Along with scoring all six of their runs from the third inning to the fifth, led by a Kyle Davis three-run homer, the Mountaineers could count on Ross Vance at the mound.

Vance pitched seven strikeouts, three walks, and one hit in 8.2 innings after coming in for Michael Grove in the first. That alone left Oklahoma scoreless, giving WVU the 6-0 victory.

The second round pinned West Virginia against the conference’s top seed, the Texas Tech Red Raiders, but with momentum in their favor, the Mountaineers won with ease.

With a 9-4 final score, West Virginia tallied 11 hits and scored in four different innings. After Davis Martin allowed six hits and three runs in 5.1 innings, Texas Tech began to really lean on its bullpen and brought in six total pitchers, all for an inning or less.

Different pitchers failed to stop WVU’s momentum, as the Mountaineers scored off four of the six pitchers they saw. The two pitchers they did not score against pitched less than 10 pitches each.

Out of WVU’s bullpen, Blake Smith secured the Mountaineer victory, pitching the last three innings and allowing three hits and two runs despite Texas Tech’s desperation to come back late. Smith’s season record improved to 5-1 with the win.

Jackson Cramer, who was then in his junior season and starting at first base, hit the two-run homer in the fourth inning to finally get the first runs on the board. Texas Tech matched it soon after with two in the sixth, but it was all West Virginia from then on, as the Mountaineers scored one in the sixth, four in the seventh, and two in the eighth to avoid hitting in the ninth.

The upset gave WVU another matchup against Oklahoma in the semifinals, and, once again, West Virginia showed no mercy, winning 11-1 over the Sooners in seven innings. WVU tallied 11 hits for 11 runs and was led by four RBIs on three hits from Kyle Davis, including his two-run homer in the fourth inning that put WVU up 5-1.

Like in the 2014 season, West Virginia’s triumphant run would end to TCU. The Mountaineers fell 11-10 in the final game, which went to 10 innings.

This season, West Virginia will need to fight past TCU early to start another historic run. With no Horned Frogs to stop them afterwards, doing so could put WVU in prime position for its first Big 12 Championship title.

Photo by Aaron Parker, Blue Gold Sports