What Steve Sabins Said Following the Walk Off Win Against Kentucky

The West Virginia Mountaineers (42-15) took down the Kentucky Wildcats (33-23) in the tenth inning with a walk off RBI single from junior Armani Guzman for a 6-5 decision and advanced to the NCAA Super Regionals.

West Virginia head coach Steve Sabins met with the media following the game and gave some insight on the Mountaineers win over the Wildcats.

Opening Statement

“That was fun. Couldn’t draw it up any better. I think everything that you love about coaching and everything that you love about the players was on full display this weekend. It was cinema. It had literally everything that you could imagine. If you keep going and you can get through adversity and you can stick together, you can do incredible things.”

“It was just truly a beautiful week of baseball, and getting to spend more time with these kids is always the goal. You’re trying to stay alive to spend another day with these guys. There’s too many individual performances to concentrate. You could obviously ask me about those individuals, but the story lines are insane.”

“I think it’s been cemented that this is the best college baseball atmosphere in the country. There’s nowhere that can provide the energy that (compares to) what just happened in Morgantown. The fans were absolutely electric. The place was sold out. There’s more and more people going on that hill every time that we play. And we’re bringing a Super Regional to Morgantown for the first time in program history.”

“The goal, since I’ve been here for 11 years, has been to do things that have never been done in program history, and to be able to do that again this season is certainly special. Just couldn’t be more excited for the players and the staff that have dedicated their lives to doing this and dedicated their lives to being part of a team.”

Kentucky tying the game in the eighth

“I’m not out there pitching and hitting, but I would imagine a lot of it had to do with (sophomore righthanded pitcher) Chansen Cole. When we talk about even keel, that’s that guy,” Sabins said.

“Our kids were pretty special. In general, when things go bad, it’s very easy to point fingers, and so when things are going bad, you start hearing a lot about umpire calls. If you’re weak-minded or you’re not strong mentally as players, you can start to think that somebody’s actually screwing you. Nobody was screwing us. We needed to make better pitches, and we needed to perform better, and we needed to keep our cool.”

“And so, as a collective unit, for our team to be able to do that and come back and win was incredible. Winning in extra innings is ridiculously hard. You gotta score, and then you gotta hold the opposing team. So, being able to get two innings where we were able to put up a zero and had a crack at walking them off was huge.”

“And (Kentucky pitcher Jack) Bennett, that kid at the end of the game, is really good. That kid is composed. (Senior pitcher) Ira Austin, (senior pitcher Jaxon) Jelkin. Those three relievers that came in the game today — Jelkin’s obviously their ace Friday guy — but those guys just held and were strong mentally and pitched their asses off.”

“I think they had 12 walks yesterday. Today they had four. So we had to go earn everything today. I’m getting long-winded, but just an incredible performance.”

Add us as a preferred source on Google