MORGANTOWN — Steve Sabins emphasizes two words in describing pitcher Griffin Kirn: ultimate trust.
That showed last week, as the Mountaineers (3-0) began the college baseball season with a three-game sweep over Jacksonville.
Kirn was the opening day starter. He pitched 5 2/3 innings and allowed just one hit and one run in a 4-2 win that gave Kirn his first Division I victory in his first game.
Kirn, a fifth-year senior, will get his second start at 2 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+), as WVU travels to Nashville, Tenn. to begin a four-game series against Lipscomb (1-1).
Sabins then elaborated a bit more, saying there is so much riding on his first season as WVU’s head coach with the Mountaineers facing possibly its highest expectations for a season than ever before.
His first ever starting pitcher was not going to be just some guy.
“He had everybody on the team believing in him,” Sabins said. “If I didn’t believe that, there’s zero chance he’s got the ball in that scenario.”
As it turns out, Sabins’ first starting pitcher was pitching at the Division II level last season.
Kirn, a left-hander, was on very few recruiting radars last summer coming out of private liberal arts college Quincy (Ill.) University, which has an enrollment of around 1,500.
This story may sound familiar. It was just last season when WVU found pitcher Derek Clark from the Division II level and he developed into the Mountaineers’ top pitcher and a ninth-round draft pick by the Los Angeles Angels.
Sabins isn’t quite ready to put Kirn into that same type of projection, but he’s getting closer.
“There’s a hell of a lot more to prove,” Sabins said. “He’s got five innings under his belt against a team that’s not even in our conference. There’s so much more to prove and he has to continue to get better.”
What Sabins has proven in his time previously as WVU’s recruiting coordinator, and now as the head coach, is there is literally no area of baseball that won’t be researched in trying to find players to bring to Morgantown.
Sure, the easy route would be to scout the future stars on the U.S.A. national teams, the players every college coach is scouting.
It’s not that Sabins is scared off from that type of recruiting competition, but there is a sense of reality that goes along with it.
“If we pretend that West Virginia is the same institution as everybody else trying to compete for national titles, we will finish second more times than not,” he said.
And so, the work has to be put in, whether that means finding a player like Sam White from Canada or diving into the transfer portal for Division II pitchers like Clark and Kirn.
“I’m very proud of that,” Sabins said. “If you want to have elite talent here, you have to buy low and sell high. You have to find markets that aren’t tapped and go to places others aren’t willing to go. You have to research things differently.”
That research led Sabins to Kirn, who joins outfielder Kyle West as WVU players on this season’s roster who began their career at the Division II level.
At Quincy last season, Kirn was 8-1 with a 2.96 ERA. He was 22-8 over his career with the Hawks.
“That’s been our philosophy over the last decade. There’s no stone unturned, whether it’s Division II or III, junior college, Puerto Rico or Canada,” Sabins said. “We have to work harder to find players in different ways. We don’t limit ourselves too much. We’re making sure we don’t miss any hidden gems at West Virginia.”
