COLUMN: No Magic, Just Grit – Mountaineers Climb on Hard Work
By the time West Virginia’s baseball team dogpiled on the Clemson mound last weekend, something electric had shifted—not in the air, but in the dugout long before the final pitch was thrown. To the casual fan, it might’ve seemed like a Cinderella story written in one euphoric weekend. But according to head coach Randy Mazey and hitting coach Steve Sabins, it was something far less mystical and far more human: hard work, resilience, and belief born of repetition.
“We didn’t pull off magic,” Sabins said after the team’s unlikely march through the Clemson Regional. “We just stuck to who we are. The comeback? That was built over months, not moments.”
And what a comeback it was.
After dropping the opening game to High Point in dramatic fashion, the Mountaineers looked down the barrel of elimination—facing not just one but three must-win games. They clawed past Vanderbilt, then avenged the High Point loss, and finally stunned host Clemson in front of a raucous crowd that had already begun celebrating in the sixth inning.
Down 5-2 with nine outs left, WVU chipped away with small-ball tenacity. A bunt single. A hit-by-pitch. A stolen base. By the top of the ninth, they had tied the game. By the bottom, they had shut the Tigers down. In the tenth, a two-run single from shortstop J.J. Wetherholt—a .347 hitter who’s quietly become the team’s heart—iced it. Final score: 7-5, Mountaineers.
“You earn those wins before the tournament even starts,” Sabins explained. “All those early morning lifts, the cage reps, the failures we turned into lessons—it adds up.”
It was a sentiment echoed across the country as LSU, another battle-tested team, mounted a similarly dramatic escape in its own Regional. Facing elimination against underdog Arkansas-Little Rock, the Tigers looked shaky early but stormed back with a 6-run eighth inning, ignited by back-to-back doubles and an improbable two-out triple.
But where LSU’s muscle flexed in bursts, WVU’s strength came from its composure. Sabins’ hitters rarely chased bad pitches. They stretched counts. They worked walks. They won ugly.
“There’s no formula that turns a 1-0 deficit into a 3-2 win in the seventh,” Sabins said. “It’s the willingness to keep grinding when the results aren’t immediate.”
What makes WVU’s performance so striking isn’t just the scoreboard—it’s the context. No top national seed. No string of first-round draft picks. Just a team playing for one another, galvanized by failure, conditioned to fight.
There’s something pure in that. And maybe that’s why we call it magic—even when it isn’t.
Because deep down, we want to believe that anyone can rise, that grit can beat glamour. That the kid from Morgantown can outduel the blue bloods. That sweat still matters more than sparkle.
And for one weekend in June, West Virginia proved it does.
