What Troy Head Coach Skylar Meade Said About West Virginia

Getting to the College World Series is difficult. Just ask the Omaha Eight from 2024 and 2025 who failed to return to Omaha for a second straight year. To be one of the last teams standing, you have to be clicking on all cylinders and get a little luck, too.

West Virginia benefited from not having to play UCLA in the Super Regionals and instead hosted Cal Poly in Morgantown. Troy, a No. 3 seed in the Gainesville Regional, hosted supers for the first time thanks to the No. 4 seed in the Hattiesburg Regional, Little Rock, pulling a stunning regional upset.

It's not all about luck, though. The Mountaineers and Trojans are two of the hottest teams in the country and have earned the right to play in Omaha.

Troy head coach Skylar Meade has all the respect in the world for the West Virginia baseball program, knowing how far this thing has really come.

“First off, I know how hard those guys work in recruiting. And unfortunately for the Trojans, many times we lose battles when we go against West Virginia," Meade said. "They’re winning those because they have an awesome program and it’s such a cool place. I actually went there in 2022 to recruit in the draft league. I was up there following guys around, and I had never been to West Virginia, as it is now. I was blown away by the facilities, the area, the food, the hotels, the campus. I got to tour with Neal Brown their football facility, and I was blown away. I’m like, if I was a recruit, I could end up here.

“But specific to their team, the athleticism is impressive. Three guys with over 19 steals," he continued. "Obviously, they can do some skill game. The (Gavin) Kelly kid is as good as it gets as an overall player. He’s a dynamic guy who can dump you. He can run. I think they have a real identity. And of course, from a pitching perspective, they have pitched really well. They assault the strike zone. I think their pitchers, for the most part, understand how they get you, and they stay in character often. I credit Coach Sabins and his staff. They’ve earned this. I feel like both our programs have been pushing in this way, so it’s kind of poetic in a way that we’re going to get to battle it out. I know we have been both striving to be this. I’m sure at some point if someone said, ‘Hey, West Virginia is going to be amazing, they’re going to be a host, all that,’ You’d be like, ‘Mmmm.’ Just as we talked about nearly five years ago when I got hired that we want to win a national championship; we want to go to Omaha- we know it’s going to happen. And I’m sure people go, ‘Okay, yeah. Alright, that sounds good, coach.’ But it happened for both of us, and I think both of us have truly earned it by the work and the hours and the effort that’s been put in by everyone that’s involved in the program.”

Winning game one is important in this double-elimination setup. It's basically two regionals crammed in at the same stadium. You win the first two games in Omaha, and you are in the driver's seat, as whoever comes out of the loser's bracket has to beat you twice in a row. But forget game two for now. Taking game one significantly increases your chances of reaching the championship best-of-three series. Only 12 teams in College World Series history have bounced back to win the whole thing after losing their first game in Omaha.

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