How a Win — or a Loss — Today vs. Kansas Impacts WVU’s Big 12 Title Chances

Most weekends in college baseball, taking two of three and winning the series is enough, particularly when you do it against a top 10 team on the road. For West Virginia, they won't be satisfied with just a series win. They are gunning for a three-game sweep on Sunday afternoon, which would keep them firmly in the hunt for the Big 12 regular season title heading into the final weekend.

What a win would do for West Virginia

Busting out the brooms would narrow the gap even further and would have the Mountaineers trailing the Jayhawks in the standings by just one game. This means that as long as WVU collects one more win in their series over TCU than Kansas picks up on the road at BYU next week, they will have surpassed them in the standings.

It doesn't guarantee that WVU would be the Big 12 champ, however, because UCF is still lurking, sitting just one game behind the Mountaineer, whom they hold the tiebreaker over. They wrap up their season at home against a reeling Kansas State squad. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if WVU takes care of business; they control their own destiny in terms of staying in front of the Knights.

What a loss today would mean for WVU

Losing isn't the end of the world by any means. It just puts a huge damper on the Big 12 title odds heading into the final series. This would give Kansas a three-game lead in the standings, meaning West Virginia would need to sweep TCU AND Kansas would need to be swept by BYU for the two teams to share the title. In that scenario, WVU would earn the No. 1 seed because of the head-to-head advantage.

A rested bullpen for the Mountaineers in the series finale

Maxx Yehl was dominant on Friday night and went the distance, giving the West Virginia bullpen the night off. Chansen Cole pitched well through five innings despite not having his best "stuff" before turning it over to Ian Korn, who went the remainder of the way, tossing four scoreless frames. Steve Sabins has to be thrilled with the position his team is in entering today's game, having only used one reliever through the first two nights. Their top bullpen arms, Carson Estridge and Reese Bassinger, are fully rested and will be ready if called on in relief of Dawson Montesa.

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