By: James Gravley | WV Sports Chat
The West Virginia Mountaineers travel to Kansas to face off in a Top-15 showdown this weekend. A lot is at stake for both teams headed to final two weekends of Big 12 play.
For Kansas, a series win over West Virginia mathematically will lock up the Big 12 regular season title.
For West Virginia, a series win over Kansas keeps its hopes alive to earn a shot at the Big 12 regular season championship.
But then there’s Arizona State, who’s tied with WVU in the Big 12 standings (16-8), and will play a three-game set with Oklahoma State who has turned it on the last several weeks in conference play.
Right now if the season ended today, Kansas, WVU, Arizona State, UCF, Oklahoma State and Cincinnati would each receive double-byes in the Big 12 tournament. Four of those teams play each other this weekend. While UCF plays Baylor and Cincinnati plays Kansas State, a team that WVU just completed a series sweep.
WVU enters this weekend series riding a four game winning streak while Kansas is winners of its last 10 of 11 suffering a walk-off loss to Creighton in its midweek contest.
West Virginia will rely on Maxx Yehl on Friday while Chansen Cole and Dawson Montesa will close out the weekend rotation.
Yehl is 6-1 with 70 strikeouts and 17 walks and has allowed two home runs in 57.1 innings.
Cole has an 8-1 record and leads the conference in wins.
Montesa had struggled as the Friday night starter, but has been decent in the weekend rotational slot. He also has 70 strikeouts on the year which is tied with Yehl for the team lead.
The live RPI tracker has Kansas sitting at 15 and WVU sitting at 24. This is crucial as Kansas is predicted to host a regional, while WVU is still slotted as a two-seed in a regional. If WVU wins this series, they could also join Kansas in potentially hosting a regional once the postseason begins.
And another note for this game for people to remember. Last year when WVU had a chance to clinch Big 12 title, Kansas came to Morgantown and won all three games.
Now the WVU and KU teams are a lot different than last year, but that has to be a reminder on Steve Sabins mind that WVU could potentially play a spoiler in Kansas’s party if the Mountaineers win all three games this weekend.
Photo: Shanna Rose | WV Sports Chat
