Photo by Ron Rittenhouse WVU third baseman Tyrus Hall smacks a grand slam against Cal Poly in the super regionals.

MORGANTOWN — The stars of WVU’s baseball lineup you already know.

Some of them are chasing records, whether that’s Armani Guzman needing one stolen base to set the school’s single-season mark or Gavin Kelly needing two home runs to tie the program’s single season record of 19.

Chansen Cole has yet to taste defeat in any of his three postseason starts. Maxx Yehl is the Big 12 Pitcher of the Year.

Here’s the scoop: The Mountaineers (45-15) may not be playing in the College World Series on Friday if not for the other guys.

“When you look at the entire thing, everyone played a role,” is the way WVU head coach Steve Sabins explained it. “Everyone we had out there had their moments in helping us reach this moment.”

The other guys, as a collective unit, are found at the bottom of the Mountaineers’ batting order; the No. 7, No. 8 and No. 9 hitters, who are generally thought of as the easier outs.

Except Brodie Kresser, Ben Lumsden and Tyrus Hall have been anything but easy on opposing pitching since the start of the NCAA tournament.

Just to get the stats out of the way, the trio are batting .316 as a group since the start of the NCAA tournament. They’ve hit a collective five home runs and driven in 25 of the Mountaineers 75 runs since the end of the Big 12 tournament.

They’re really impressive stat is the fact that Kresser, Lumsden and Hall have also drawn 17 walks, making their collective on-base percentage an impressive .532.

How many college baseball teams see their bottom three guys in the lineup get on base 53% of the time? Now you’re beginning to see their true impact.

Among those powerful hits include Hall’s grand slam in the first game of the super regional against Cal Poly and Lumsden’s two home runs and five RBIs in the second game against Cal Poly that punched WVU’s ticket to Omaha.

“It was great coming up in that scenario,” Hall said of the grand slam. “The first thing is I heard all of the fans. Having that kind of support is crazy. It was a 2-0 count and I was just looking dead red. I got a pitch to drive and it happened to go out. It was a great experience.”

As it usually is, their numbers don’t tell the complete story as to what these three bottom-order guys have meant to the Mountaineers during their postseason run.

The story begins on May 31, in what ended as, quite possibly, the program’s defining moment in the NCAA tournament. You likely remember it as the game where WVU outfielder Paul Schoenfeld hit a two-run home run in the top of ninth inning, as the Mountaineers came from behind to beat Kentucky, 11-9.

What you may not remember is Schoenfeld was scheduled to bat sixth that inning. When WVU headed into that ninth inning, it began with hitters seven, eight and nine. The Mountaineers trailed, 9-6, and the odds of Schoenfeld even getting to take a swing in the ninth were likely astronomical.

But then Kresser reached on an error and Lumsden walked. Hall hit a bloop single out to left field and now the bases were loaded for the top of WVU’s lineup.

The rest was magical. Guzman walked to score Kresser. Kelly hit a sacrifice fly to score Lumsden and Hall scored on a rare balk call to tie the game.

And then Schoenfeld had his viral moment, a drive to the right field bullpen for the 11-9 lead. None of it happens though if Kresser had simply grounded out, Lumsden strikes out and Hall’s fly ball is caught.

In that world, WVU is sitting in Morgantown watching the College World Series from home wondering what might have been.

As it is, WVU is putting up 10.7 runs per game in the NCAA tournament. Without the production from WVU’s “other guys,” that number falls to 7.1 per game.

“Offense is so up and down and is about timely hitting,” Sabins said. “I think a lot of it has to do with momentum. Probably the biggest piece of hitting is confidence. As the team wins and as people start to perform better, I think confidence increases. I think our guys are confident and know they have a chance to be an elite offense.”