MORGANTOWN — The Mountaineers aren’t the only team in Morgantown playing good baseball this spring. Beginning on Monday, cross-town rivals Morgantown and University will face off in the Class AAA Region 1 series with a trip to the state tournament on the line.
“WVU is having a heck of a year and bringing a lot of excitement about baseball and now you have your two local high schools competing to go to states,” MHS coach Pat Sherald said before practice on Thursday. “It’s just an exciting time for baseball in this area.”
The entire regional series will take place at Maylan Park next week, with Monday’s Game 1 played on Morgantown’s Dale Miller Field, Game 2 moving about 100 feet to University’s Shilling Field and the possible winner-take-all Game 3 Wednesday back at ‘The Dale’. All games will start at 5 p.m.
“We’ve worked really hard to get to this point,” UHS coach Brad Comport said Wednesday. “Our guys have sacrificed a lot. It’s rewarding to see all of that coming to fruition. Most of all, we have a really good group of guys who have all worked extremely hard to earn this opportunity.”
Neither team knew that they would in this spot when the season started. Not only has Bridgeport won the region in all four years since moving up to Class AAA, the Mohigans and Hawks both had question marks early in the year.
For Morgantown (23-6) the question was who would pitch after the Mohigans graduated over 80% of their varsity innings from last season. For University (22-10) it was how to recover from a stumble out of the gate that had the Hawks sitting at just 6-8 in the middle of April.
For MHS, that uncertainty turned into a strength thanks to breakout starting pitchers Dylan Travinski (7-1, 2.53 ERA), Hunter Dakan (6-0, 1.62) and Caleb Cottle (4-0, 2.21) and closer Ryan Fluharty (five saves, 0.78 ERA).
“Coming into the year? No, no chance,” Sherald said when asked if he ever imagined pitching would be a strength this season. “We had a meeting in November with the team and we explained that there’s a ton of opportunity on the mound. Fortunately, these guys have come out and really competed and it has been one of our strengths.
“It says a lot about their character and mentality,” he continued. “They were not afraid of the opportunity and they went out and just took the innings…We don’t ask them to be perfect, we just ask them to go out there and compete and give us an opportunity and, for the most part, that’s what they’ve done all year.”
Offensively, the club is led by Fluharty, who starts at shortstop before taking the mound in relief, and his .468 batting average, 24 extra-base hits and 40 RBI. Catcher Ty Galusky is no slouch hitting .449 and centerfielder Aaron Jamison, who will play for WVU next spring, could return from an injury that’s kept him on the bench for a couple of weeks.
“Obviously a really good team with a very dangerous lineup,” Comport said of the Mohigans. “They do all the little things right and we’re just going to have to be on top of our game and have really good situational awareness to beat those guys. I think it’s really good for the community to have two local schools battling it out.”
For UHS, the turnaround came with the emergence of hitters Noah Braham and Wenkai Campbell establishing themselves as one of the best one-two punches in the state.
“I just kind of come out here and play,” Braham said. “I don’t have any pressure on me because it’s not my main sport so I just come out here, swing the bat and I have fun.”
Braham, the WVU football commit who was named OVAC 5A Player of the Year on Thursday, is hitting .543 with 13 home runs, 15 doubles and 62 RBI. While he will suit up for WVU football coach Neal Brown in the fall, Braham said, if given the chance, he’d be open to playing for Mountaineer baseball coach Randy Mazey as well.
“He’s having a heck of a year, what a special talent,” Sherald said. “If he wasn’t against me, I’d really enjoy watching him play.”
Simply pitching around Braham would be an effective strategy if it weren’t for Campbell, who hits behind him in UHS’s lineup and is batting .383 with 16 extra-base hits and 41 RBI himself.
“You’ve got to challenge him,” Travinski said of facing Braham. “There’s no way to pitch around him, if you make a mistake he’s going to hit it and hit it hard. If he’s going to beat me, he’s going to beat me with my best.”
Like Morgantown, University also has a shortstop pulling double duty as closer in Cody Thomas, who is hitting .371 and carries a 1.06 ERA and seven saves on the mound.
Monday will be the fourth game between the rivals this season. Morgantown won the first two with a 10-0 blowout and then a four-run seventh-inning rally to win 7-5, but University took the most recent matchup last month, winning 10-4 in an OVAC tournament semifinal.
“That was a big moment right there,” Thomas said of beating MHS. “That let us know we can compete against those tougher teams and that we can be one of those tougher teams.”
Both sides know that next week’s matchups will be the biggest yet and are expecting a large and engaged crowd to further add to the atmosphere.
“The rivalry’s fun, even our first couple of games when it was cold and wet,” Dakan said. “Especially now being in the regionals and going to states. This has been Bridgeport’s region so it’s going to be a new team in Charleston this year.”
“It feels good to go out and be able to compete against guys you’ve grown up with your whole life and that you’re friends with off the field,” Travinski said of facing University. “But there comes a point on the field when you treat them like they’re not your friend and you’ve never met them before.”
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