The final weekend of the WVU baseball regular season was more about Andy Altemus and his rubber arm or Kevin Griffin and his enormous hit. Oh, both were significant in a significant weekend. Both have been keys to what’s been a better-late-than-never season, Griffin settling in as the starting catcher the past 30 or so games, Altemus giving WVU durability and reliability in relief.

No, WVU’s series victory against Villanova was about completing a modest, though difficult quest. It propelled the team to the Big East Tournament, which once seemed unattailable when the Mountaineers were 18-26 overall, 3-15 in the Big East and seemingly headed toward matching or surpassing a school-record 32 losses. Once in a 2-9 slump and at the season’s low point following a three-game sweep at Cincinnati, WVU is 9-2 since.

“I’m not going to make excuses for our guys because we did get out-played that weekend, but it was the weekend before finals and it’s always hard to play your best when you’ve got three, four, five finals coming up,” Van Zant said. “We’re on the road and guys are trying to study and, to Cincinnati’s credit, in that three-game and 27 innings they walked three guys. We walked 15 or 16 and only scored nine runs.

“You’re not going to win many three-game series when you score nine runs. Cincinnati just out-played and out-pitched us. At that point we just told the guys to take a couple days off for finals and regroup and get back at it.”