WKU Baseball: Tops Show First Sign of Quality in 2024, Split Series With WVU at The Nick

A surprising "get" for Coach Rardin, somehow WKU convinced West Virginia Baseball to play at WKU and play a four game series. WKU cashed in with two big wins.

WKU Head Coach Marc Rardin turned some heads in 2023 during the season, leading WKU to a respectable ( and frankly astounding) fourth place finish in CUSA. After the season, when he and his staff chose to cut or “encourage” nearly all of his current roster to transfer from WKU, he turned a few more heads, perhaps in a less-than-ideal direction.

The big question heading into the season was the obvious: “Well, how is that going to work out?”

WKU looked a little shaky in its first two series, losing its Friday opener to bad teams in its first two weekend series, experimenting against Lipscomb with a ton of pitchers, and getting shut out by a decent-but-not-great UK team, although the Cats are currently 10-1 themselves.

WKU started the weekend against WVU respectably, losing 4-0 in the series opener Friday and 8-3 in the first game of the doubleheader on Saturday. That’s not a disaster. WVU is a solid baseball program, sharing the regular season Big 12 Championship last season, and being picked tied for sixth (still respectable) in the preseason. Oh yeah and just a little teensy side note… they have the projected #1 draft pick in second baseman JJ Wetherholt, as well. However, he has been out since the last game of their series against Stetson with a hamstring injury.

WVU (7-6, 0-0 B12) has not shown greatness against “mid-major” competition thus far, losing at least one game in each of its series thus far, all against “lesser” competition.

This WKU series was no exception, clearly missing their star, who hit nearly .450 last season in a serious baseball conference, the clear winner of the Big 12 Conference Player of the Year Award.

Regardless, from a WKU perspective, getting one win against WVU would be nice, but splitting? That’s a dream! I don’t know how the guys in the dugout feel about it, but splitting with a Power Five at home is just great for the program and great for the fans to see good baseball on The Hill.

WKU got the bats going a little bit against WVU Saturday afternoon, scoring four in the first inning and hanging on for dear life, only scoring three the rest of the way to the tune of a 7-6 victory. WKU’s main MLB prospect, relief pitcher Mason Burns, came in and got the save after WVU started with a lead off solo homer in the ninth inning.

Burns made himself a little money there, coming in against quality competition and shutting them down in dominating fashion, recording two strikeouts in his one inning of work.

Burns played the hero role again Sunday. Once again, the Tops exploded for a four run second inning and didn’t do much afterward. This time, Burns came in with two outs in the seventh inning, allowing three total hits, but recording seven outs without a run scored to finish the game off, 4-3.

A heroic performance, Burns has already put on film some clutch pitching early in 2024. He surely made a little bit of money this weekend, raising his draft stock, and that’s a great thing to see for a kid allowed to be loyal to the Tops.

WKU now sits at 8-5 on the young season and has very winnable games the rest of the way until conference play begins against FIU in late March, not facing another team inside the top 150 in most metrics.

WKU Baseball’s 2024 season is still incredibly young, but splitting with WVU probably puts a few minds at ease about the generally quality of the team. Does it prove anything? Absolutely not, especially because WVU’s best player hasn’t been playing lately and didn’t face WKU, and also, WKU could have easily dropped a couple more games.

Regardless of the early season question marks, beating a Power Five program at home does a lot of good things for the program.

Keep an eye on this WKU Baseball program. Marc Rardin may have ruffled a few feathers with his offseason tactics, but on the field and within the structure of the program, WKU Baseball is trending in the right direction.