For the second-consecutive season, the WVU baseball team has been picked to finish sixth in the Big 12 Conference.
Coaches in the conference selected the order of finishing in a list that was announced Thursday.
TCU, which won the league in 2015, has been picked to win again in 2016. The Horned Frogs garnered three first-place votes, but so did Oklahoma State and Texas. TCU came away with 57 points, while the Cowboys and Longhorns had 55 and 53, respectively.
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According to WVIllustrated, the preseason frontrunner has gone on to win the regular season on six occasions and the postseason title four times.
In West Virginia’s first season in the Big 12, 2013, the Mountaineers made it all the way to the conference semifinals. The WVU baseball team won its final game of the season in the Big 12 playoffs, but were unable to qualify for the league’s title game.
Since taking over the program the same year the Mountaineers joined the Big 12, head coach Randy Mazey has transformed the image of the club from a forgotten team to a contending team. Thanks to Mazey’s Big 12 experience with TCU before coming to Morgantown and the construction of Monongalia County Ballpark, the Mountaineers have staying power and could continue to contend in the baseball-crazed Big 12.
Though the Mountaineers have just been selected to finish in the middle-of-the-pack in the conference, there is still more excitement with the program than there ever was when Greg Van Zant was in charge for about two decades.
Already, another positive has been bestowed on the WVU baseball program as Kyle Davis was named to the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association All-American team.
Davis, a rising sophomore, led the Mountaineers with a .353 batting average and 17 doubles in 2015, while also posting four home runs, 31 RBI and one triple. Davis ranked third in the Big 12 Conference in batting and in doubles, fifth in hits and total bases and eighth in slugging percentage, according to WVUsports.com.
Though it’s still the middle of winter, these encouraging signs of spring can get anyone excited about the prospect of better weather. With spring, comes baseball. And for the WVU baseball team, there looks to be the chance of better baseball than has ever been played before in Morgantown.