Good day for WVU baseball Tuesday. Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signed SB1001 that creates the TIF which will help finance the school’s new baseball stadium. That happened before the first pitch of what is likely the last college game ever at Hawley Field, a good old-fashioned WVU v. Pitt.

And as you can see, there were a lot of people at the game. In fact, the game set a stadium record at 2,535.

The record crowd more than doubles the previous Hawley Field record of 1,174 that was set against Maryland in 2007.

“It was unbelievable. I can’t even put into words how good I felt about the atmosphere tonight,” coach Randy Mazey says. “I was hitting infield/outfield to the team before the game and our guys were hopping around with a lot of energy. To look on the hill and see all the fans, I thought, OK this is Big 12 baseball right here.”

Everything was cool until Brock Dykxhoorn and his 0.89 ERA took some hits in the fourth inning. The Panthers used a grand slam to key a six-run inning and a 6-0 lead. The Mountaineers made it interesting with a two-run triple in the eighth to make it 7-6 and then a leadoff single in the ninth and two at-bats with the game-tying run at second, but it would end 7-6.

Gone is WVU’s five-game winning streak and 11-game home winning streak.

“That was a phenomenal college baseball atmosphere,” said head coach Joe Jordano. “It was a very exciting game. West Virginia is obviously one of the hottest teams in the Big 12 right now and I just thought it was a great game.”

But that’s still a win for WVU, right? Relevant baseball in April? And truth be told, nothing changes in the far more important Big 12 standings, which will he affected by the weekend’s three-game series in Charleston against conference-leading Oklahoma.