Photo by Ben Powell/Dominion Post West Virginia baseball had a sold-out crowd for its first time hosting a regional since 2019.

GRANVILLE — Kendrick Family Ballpark opened at 4 p.m. for the second game of the Morgantown Regional, and the stadium quickly filled up with gold and blue shirts. Mostly gold since it was supposed to be a gold-out. The Mountaineer fans were ready. They’d been tailgating since the first game started at noon, some before that, set up lawn chairs on the hill and made the good trek from Walmart or Dick’s Sporting Goods to park if they had to. You could feel the fans were ready.

But, they’ve been preparing for a weekend like this long before the Friday night game. WVU hadn’t hosted a regional since 2019, and it showed through the ticket sales. All tickets sold out in under an hour and were going for hundreds of dollars on secondary markets. On secondary markets, there was a point where the tickets were sold out. WVU fans were ready to cheer on their team, and it definitely played a part in the 10-1 victory. The announced attendance was 4,120, which was a couple of hundred shy of the 2019 regional.

Even for players who have been with the Mountaineers for a couple of years, like Armani Guzman, who’s seen the crowd in 2025 against Pitt, which was the most ever in the ballpark, the atmosphere was special.

“I think that was the most people I’ve ever sang Country Roads with,” Guzman said.

Through four innings, there wasn’t anything to cheer for. Binghamton, who was the No. 4 seed in the region, took a 1-0 lead in the second inning. That was until Matthew Graveline approached the plate, with Sean Smith on first after being hit by a pitch. Graveline rocketed the first pitch of the at-bat over the right center wall, 412 feet. The crowd roared to its feet.

“It was just hammered,” head coach Steve Sabins said. “Obviously, that was the turning point. That was, we are the big boys. The Mountaineers are here to stay. That was that big swing of the game because they were cruising.”

In the first couple of innings, Guzman said there were some nerves. WVU only had one hit through a couple of innings. The team had a lot of pressure as the No. 1 overall seed to perform, and had 4,000-plus people to watch them do so. This regional was a lot different than the past three.

The Mountaineers usually travel somewhere to play a regional. Last year, WVU went and played in the Clemson Regional. The Mountaineers are used to being the underdogs and getting booed when their names get announced. That wasn’t the case Friday night. There were thousands of people in support of them.

“We are always the bad guys on the road,” Guzman said. “It feels kind of good to be the superheroes, and stuff.”

But having their name cheered rather than slandered was the goal for this season. The goal for the season was set in the fall when it’s too cold to practice outside, and most of the time is spent inside the batting cages or in meeting rooms. The main goal was to bring the state together and sell out Kendrick Family Ballpark by hosting a regional, because that makes it easier to get to the Super Regional. WVU made it to the Super Regional last year, but hasn’t gotten over the hump of advancing.

“What’s our purpose here?” Sabins said. “We talk about what our kids are rooted in. Everybody is rooted in a few different things. If that’s your faith, your family, your team. We talk about the university and state, and we talk about our goals to electrify the state. To bring excitement to others, and that’s what we did today.”

The bigger goal, one that’s more for Sabins as head coach of the team, who will be at WVU longer than a college player’s career, is to host a regional every year, so it becomes normal, and there aren’t nerves, like Guzman talked about. That means WVU is a top 16 program in the country every year, which is difficult. It took WVU seven years since the last time it was.

That goal is more in the future. But with the atmosphere on Friday night, WVU took a step in the right direction.

“We got a host to host in 2019, when I was here, and that was certainly really, really special,” Sabins said. “But the more regionals you go to and Super Regionals, the more probably calm you get about what’s going on… That’s the beauty of experience. But it was great, something special. Everybody who hadn’t been to Morgantown or seen this before, or ESPN announcers, I think they’re kind of like that’s pretty good.”