What Steve Sabins Said Following the Loss to North Carolina

The West Virginia Mountaineers dropped their first game of the College World Series to North Carolina Sunday night 5-2.

West Virginia head coach Steve Sabins met with the media following the game and gave some insight on the Mountaineers loss to the Tarheels.

Opening statement

Guys played really hard and competed. Max Yehl, tremendous outing, going seven innings with seven strikeouts. Allowed two earned runs. He really gave us a chance to win that ballgame. We had some great individual performances. Didn't play our cleanest baseball. When you give great teams opportunities, North Carolina was able to take advantage of that. But it was a good game by North Carolina.

Our guys have been in this situation before, similar to the regional where we lost the second game of the regional and were able to scratch and claw our way back into it. We get a little more rest in this event, so the guys can recover and come back, try to eliminate a team in a day..

Thoughts on the errors committed by the Mountaineers

I think that's just baseball. Over the course of 62 games, that stuff happens. I think we have the best fielding percentage in our league, and (junior third baseman) Tyrus (Hall) is one of the best defenders in the nation. We've had really good success, and so, that's kind of part of it. You don't want itat that time, but I feel very confident that any mistakes that are made are made because mistakes happen in baseball, not necessarily because of the moment or the situation.

I feel like our guys have played really free and aggressive this entire time. (redshirt junior starting pitcher) Max (Yehl) did a really nice job. I thought we were definitely going to get out of that inning. We had two errors in that inning and so, when you give a great team five outs, it's hard to get through it. But, it ended up being a ground ball ended up being the one that kind of broke our back there.

"But Max was awesome. After the second error, Max looked at (utility infielder Brodie) Kresser and said, 'Hey, I got you, man.' He was very confident in the moment, and I really believed he was going to get out of it. We didn't because North Carolina is a good team, and eventually that stuff kind of stacks on top on each others.

"In general, errors happen. I think it's the mental errors that, as a coach, can drive you crazy and that you try to get those out there. The physical stuff happens."

The confidence in the Mountaineers to come back suffering a loss in a double elimination format

"I don't think this team is phased by much. They really like playing baseball. They like being together, and so we get to do that. Basically, the mindset is we get to rest, recover, go have a nice practice, and then we get to play ball again.

"Obviously, we just want to keep playing together as long as possible. I think they've gotten rid of that pressure and thinking about that too much because they think they're pretty good. We've been in a lot of ballgames against basically every opponent we've played. I think they believe that they're capable of being the best in the country. Things have to go your way, and you have to have quality at-bats, and you have to play clean baseball. But I think they truly believe that if their process is right and they play good, they have a chance to beat anybody in the country.

"That belief isn't new to them. That's pretty rooted in there. And so, I think the experience helps, but even before we had the experience, we were able to pull it off because that belief was there."

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