West Virginia Leads the Big 12 in Stolen Bases

West Virginia is sitting at 13-8 on the season and is in large part due to the baserunning of the Mountaineers, taking advantage of every opportunity for an extra base.

At times, the Mountaineers’ baserunning almost seems borderline reckless but under the direction of head coach Randy Mazey, small ball has been the theme, and was recently dubbed 'Mazey Ball'.

"That's the kind of player that I was. I was a two-way guy that liked to steal bases and put pressure on the defense, and I guess you just kind of gravitate toward liking to coach the way you were as a player," Mazey said in the preseason. "I want people to hate to play us in baseball because every guy that gets on base has an opportunity to run and make some things happen. It makes the pitchers and other teams uncomfortable and makes them do stuff they normally wouldn't do. It's kind of fun to change the way people play."

The Mountaineers are coming off an 11 stolen base performance in the 13-2 drubbing of Youngstown State in game two of a doubleheader Friday afternoon, pushing the total to 79 on the season, leading the Big 12 Conference by a wide margin with Oklahoma's 51 stolen bases coming in second. Nationally, West Virginia ranks third.

Having the personnel is key and Mazey has a knack of identifying prospects to play his brand of baseball. He has three guys in the top five in stolen bases with Victor Scott leading the conference with 20, while Austin Davis is third (11), Tevin Tucker sits fourth (10) and JJ Wetherholt is sitting just outside at sixth with nine. In all 13 Mountaineers have registered a stolen bases.

"I tell those guys all the time, you don’t have to be a great hitter to be a great offensive player. There’s other things you can do to really help the offense… We got so many guys that have different roles on this team, I’ve never had that where you can pinch run guys, pinch hit guys and everybody is sliding into a really good spot right now,” said Mazey.

West Virginia travels in-state on Tuesday as the Mountaineers head to Huntington to take on the Marshall Thundering at 3:00 pm at the Kennedy Center.

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