Steve Sabins Won't Stop to Appreciate History

Winning baseball games is what West Virginia head coach Steve Sabins does. On Friday afternoon, he improved his overall record to 90-30 and helped guide the team to a 7-5 win over Troy in the College World Series, marking the program's first-ever win in Omaha.

One of the reasons this team never panics or starts to press is that they have taken on the identity of their coach. They stay even-keeled through all the ups and downs, knowing baseball is a game full of failure and that you can't dwell on a bad pitch, bad decision at the plate, or an error in the field.

You can point to the elimination game against Wake Forest, but certainly the two games against Kentucky which were full of drama. They never waved the white flag. They just keep coming at you and never give up on an inning, just like we saw multiple times yesterday as they pieced some things together with two outs and no one on.

The in the moment, be where your feet are approach was on full display again today when Sabins joined the pregame show for the Alabama-Oklahoma game. He was asked if he ever takes a look around to see what he and this team have accomplished to this point, and his answer is exactly what you would expect.

“I don’t think so yet, just because we always talk about seizing the opportunity and you get an opportunity to do something special, not for yourself but like this state and this university. You start to feel that in the games, right? Like we won games, and you look up, and there’s grown men crying, and there’s babies being thrown in the air, and you’re like ‘This is pretty cool.’ So my mission is to go play the best baseball we can and give these kids the best opportunity they can to accomplish something really special. And then afterwards when this thing’s said and done, we’ll go get a beach house and have a beer and recognize what was happened.”

"My mission is to go play the best baseball we can, and give these kids the best opportunity they can, to accomplish something really special."

—West Virginia coach Steve Sabins on the Mountaineers capturing historic win at MCWS 👏 pic.twitter.com/z8g2CkIMn7
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) June 13, 2026

Doing things that have never been done at WVU has been a huge part of Sabins' (and Randy Mazey's) goal for this program. With every game they play and every win they collect at this point, more history will be made. That's something he'll be able to look back on and smile about once the season comes to an end. He just hopes that when he heads to the beach house, he'll be taking a trophy with him.

This team is absolutely capable of being the last one standing in Omaha. And to think that Sabins has brought so much success in just his first two years on the job makes you wonder just how high the ceiling is for this program.

Just a couple of hours before their game against Troy on Friday, Sabins was named the NCBWA National Coach of the Year, becoming the first WVU coach to ever win the award. If the Mountaineers can win on Sunday, they will be in the driver's seat for their side of the bracket.

The Mountaineers will take on the North Carolina Tar Heels on Sunday night in the winner's bracket. First pitch is set for 7 p.m. ET and will be televised on ESPN.

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