MORGANTOWN — West Virginia baseball came out of Georgia Southern with a clean sheet, sweeping in the first series of the season. The games were tough, with one being decided in the ninth and the other decided by a couple of late runs. It was a taxing trip that had the Mountaineers playing a doubleheader after the Sunday, Feb. 15, game was rescheduled due to bad weather in the forecast.

WVU didn’t make it out of the weekend free of injuries in the first series, having some of its best players banged up. Head coach Steve Sabins spoke with the media on Monday, Feb. 16, after getting back to Morgantown on Sunday.

One of the better hitters on the weekend, second baseman Gavin Kelly, was banged up after four at-bats a game, playing second in two and one behind the plate. Kelly had five hits, three doubles, stole a base and had two RBIs. Kelly’s injury shouldn’t be an issue going forward.

“Gavin’s good,” Sabins said. “No issues there. He had a pretty heavy week, playing two games at second and one behind the dish.”

WVU’s first baseman Brodie Kresser’s injury was a bit more serious. Kresser was hit by a pitch in the shin and had the swelling “blow up” pretty good. He couldn’t really put pressure on it, and needs the inflammation to go down before returning to the field. Kresser had one hit in the first game and then was just hit by a pitch in the second game. He didn’t play in Game 3.

“Brodie was walking around the airport pretty comfortably,” Sabins said. “I guess maybe comfortably wouldn’t be the right word, but he was walking in the airport. He got banged up. He got a fastball to the shin. He had a baseball-sized welt on his shin, and so it was hard to put weight on, but he was moving good. He should be good by the weekend, but we got to see over the next couple of days if we’re able to flush it out.”

There was some positive news over the weekend regarding WVU’s top returning pitcher, Chase Meyer. Before the season started, Sabins said Meyer was three to four weeks behind schedule after he broke a finger on his throwing hand around November. Sabins said if Meyer were to pitch in the opening weekend, he’d be out of the bullpen and on a pitch count of 30 pitches.

In the second game, the Mountaineers let a 7-0 lead slip, allowing seven runs. Sabins went to Meyer to settle the ship, coming in for Ben McDougal, who worked a 0-2 count on one of his batters. After a couple of foul balls, Sabins thought Meyer’s breaking ball could come in and get the batter out.

“That was a big unusual,” Sabins said. “Again, one of those decisions that is a nontraditional decision that worked out for us. We’ve made a lot of those that we think are in the best interest of the team… If he didn’t get that one, I thought within four pitches, Chase would be able to get the strikeout, which ended up being huge for us.”

Meyer faced seven batters and struck out three and only walked one. He was awarded the win after the inning and an out that he pitched. Meyer was capped at 32 pitches, though, just like Sabins said before the series.

But after three games in two days in the middle of February, WVU did well to come out of the weekend unscathed, even after needing to be rescued in the elevator by the local fire department. Now, it’s just trying to stay healthy throughout the season.

“I think someone said we won three games in 24 hours, and we were at the baseball field for about 12 hours on Saturday,” Sabins said. “It was a very long day, lots of back and forth. Lots of pitching changes. To go from lots of indoor training and a little bit of outdoor training with the four-hour limitations on practice days to being at the field for 12 hours is just different on the body… I think we survived.”