WVU baseball vs. UNLV: Noon April 8, Monongalia County Ballpark. Tickets: $6 or $7 each, depending on area of the park. It is Kids Day. They will be permitted to run the bases at the end of the game.
MORGANTOWN — Make no mistake, the pain in Marques Inman’s knee was very real.
As real as a torn ACL can be.
“It was a situation where I was trying to beat out a play at first,” the WVU first baseman said. “My foot caught on the foot of their first baseman and I felt the pop. I knew right away something was wrong. It was instant.”
As with other athletes in his situation, Inman’s comeback required dedication that few outside of physical therapists or trainers ever saw.
It took months of strength and conditioning, and weeks more to learn to trust that the knee wouldn’t blow out again at the first sign of trouble.
None of it was easy.
Yet, none of it compared to the pain Inman felt in the months that followed the injury.
Forget the fact that he was having his best collegiate season at the time, batting .351 with a .544 slugging percentage over 16 starts.
Those were simply numbers that could have changed if Inman were given the opportunity.
“Honestly, what hurt the most was missing out on the season,” Inman said. “We had our first [NCAA] regional appearance. It was hard to sit back and watch everyone else do it.”
WVU made the NCAA tournament last season for the first time since 1996.
That was history. That was the opportunity that WVU head coach Randy Mazey sold to Inman, when he was a high school standout in Elyria, Ohio.
“I love all of my teammates to death, but I wanted to be out there with them,” Inman said. “That was the hardest part.”
Knees heal.
Pain passes in time.
An opportunity to play in the NCAA tournament is not so guaranteed.
Inman was supposed to be a major factor. He may have been able to help push the Mountaineers past Wake Forest and into the next round.
A year later, he is starting again.
He’s starting to get his groove back at the plate. He hit two home runs in a doubleheader split against UNLV on Friday.
The two teams will conclude the series at noon today, at Monongalia County Ballpark.
“It’s still a work in progress, but it’s gradually coming back,” Inman said. “Defensively, I still need to put a little bit of work in.”
His .274 batting average is already 19 points higher than it was on March 24.
Inman has added three home runs and is tied for the team lead with 14 RBIs.
“He’s been giving us really good at-bats at the plate,” Mazey said. “He had two big home runs for us and he’s been hitting doubles. He’s staying in there pretty well for us.
“He’s a guy who hopefully catches fire in the second half of the season.”
And his eye hasn’t failed him. His two home runs Friday were memorable, yet it was the walk he drew in the bottom of the ninth that allowed teammate Justin Gray to come to the plate and produce the walk-off hit that handed the Mountaineers an 8-7 victory over the Rebels.
In drawing the walk, Inman laid off a fastball that was just inches outside, as well as a biting curveball that was in the dirt on a full-count pitch.
“He wasn’t guessing much,” Gray said. “When he took that full-count curveball in the dirt, that was a big-time take. I knew I had to come up with something after that at-bat.”
