The year 2025 was special for the WVU baseball program. A year after Randy Mazey retired to conclude his 12-year head coaching career at WVU, first-year head coach Steve Sabins took over the program after being an assistant coach for the Mountaineers for nine seasons. What he accomplished was pretty impressive for a coach in his first season at the helm – Sabins led his team to a Super Regionals appearance (the program's second Super Regional appearance in a row), captured the program's first outright regular season Big 12 title, and broke the program record in wins in a single season (44).
To reward Coach Sabins for such a great and historic season, WVU extended its baseball head coach through 2031 last month.
Building something special with the Mountaineers!
— WVU Baseball (@WVUBaseball) July 23, 2025
Coach Sabins has signed an 𝙚𝙭𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣 through 𝟐𝟎𝟑𝟏!#HailWV pic.twitter.com/KCBgn7tig2
Why An Extension Is The Right Move
With baseball becoming more popular at the collegiate level year-by-year and WVU baseball having a solid foundation in place following the Mazey era, the sport presents an brilliant opportunity for WVU if they take the right approach to continuing to build the program.
Early indications are that Sabins could be the guy who could help WVU reach Omaha. Sabins has demonstrated he can land talented transfers, utilize technology for player development, and recruit well at the high school level, which is a formula that could help Sabins chase down that elusive trip to the College World Series.
Sabins led the Mountaineers to an overall 44-16 record and a 19-9 conference record in his first season, and it's not easy to rack up that many wins in college baseball. Even with the record-breaking 44 wins, WVU had a late-season implosion that cost them a chance to host a regional tournament and also trickled into Big 12 play. WVU limped to the regular season finish line, losing six of its last seven games before heading into the Big 12 tournament.
Despite the bumpy ending to the regular season and a sputter in the Big 12 Tournament, the Mountaineers managed to go an undefeated 3-0 in the Clemson Regional to win the regional. During the three wins in Clemson, South Carolina, WVU managed to upset the number one seed in the regional and the 11th nationally ranked Clemson Tigers, who hosted. WVU also knocked off Kentucky in a couple of wild wins. If Sabins finds ways to eliminate the mistakes that caused WVU to sputter down the stretch, he could put together an elite season.
The 2025 season finished with WVU getting left with a sour taste in their mouth as they lost to LSU in the LSU Super Regional, getting swept 2-0 in a best-of-three series. The Mountaineers are retooling with a really good transfer class and hope to get that bad taste out of their mouth to take a trip to Omaha for the 2026 College World Series. And there is no better person to help lead WVU to that destination than Sabins.