File photo WVU coach Steve Sabins meets with his team on the mound from a game last year. The Mountaineers open the season today with a three-game series against Georgia Southern.

MORGANTOWN — Armani Guzman started off the inning with a flyout. Logan Sauve watched strike three for the next at-bat. Kyle West waved at a strike three, ending the bottom of the ninth, along with West Virginia baseball’s 2025 season. The Mountaineers were swept in the Super Regional by LSU, who, to be fair, eventually won the National Championship.

But, finishing the regular season with the best record in the Big 12 and winning 44 games, the loss stung.

“I think we were all pretty disappointed with the way we ended last year,” pitcher Reese Bassinger said. “Even though we were 44-16, I think we were all a little disappointed with the way we ended it.”

It was still a historic season for the Mountaineers. In his first season as head coach, Steve Sabins’ squad was regarded as one of the top 25 teams in the country, and despite the loss, finished around the top 15, according to various outlets. Sabins took his team to the Super Regionals, and it was the second-straight year in a row that WVU reached that mark.

On Feb. 13, it’ll be 250 days since that loss. It also marks the start of the 2026 season with a three-game series against Georgia Southern, with the first pitch slated for 6:30 p.m.

Before the first pitch, WVU was recently ranked No. 3 in the Preseason Big 12 Rankings, according to coaches in the conference. This is the highest ranking for the Mountaineers since they joined the Big 12 in 2013. The only teams ahead are TCU and Arizona, who were in the conference championship.

“The rankings mean nothing and are of zero importance to the program,” Sabins said.

But the rankings do have an importance to the program. The coaches around the Big 12 are respecting that WVU is a power program in the conference. Last year, WVU was ranked No. 4, so it is slowly working its way to the top.

“The fact that the peers of the college coaches in this league respect the program certainly means something,” Sabins said. “It’s really more about a respect for a program and a culture that’s being built, where you start to just respect the people in the league and say, year in and year out, they put a quality product on the field. They recruit the right kind of kids, their staff is elite, so those kinds of things. That’s certainly flattering to be considered a top program, preseason by the coaches.”

Now, it’s living up to those expectations, and not just getting back to the Super Regional, but getting over the hump and advancing.

It’s harder, though, with this year’s roster because a lot of the expected starters weren’t on the 2025 team. WVU added multiple transfers this offseason and had a productive freshman and JUCO signing class.

Sabins recruited carefully, making sure the new players realize the expectations of a deep postseason run.

“I think a lot of the returners know exactly what it takes to get to where we need to be, and we’ve done a good job of holding the new guys up to a higher standard,” Bassinger said. “I think a lot of the new guys were recruited properly because they came in ready to go. I think the new guys want it just as bad as returners, even though they don’t know what it feels like yet, but they’re on the same page.”

With the new players, the 2026 team is deep and might be better than last year’s squad with all the depth at pitching and some nice transfer bats. WVU has the tools required for a deep postseason run.

On paper, it could look pretty, but the on-field product will truly show if everyone is bought in with the same goal in mind.

“Everything we do is tough,” Brodie Kresser said. “It’s challenging. We push each other, but that just kind of shows that other schools might not be doing that, and we are. It showed that we’re successful, and we’re that close to making more and more history.”