MORGANTOWN — It can be debated whether Pitt landed a swift jab or a complete roundhouse right against the 13th-ranked WVU baseball team.

Either way, Mountaineers’ head coach Steve Sabins said it may have been a needed blow.

“The reality is, during the course of a long season, sometimes you need to be punched in the face a little bit to get refocused, regroup and really concentrate on how to get better,” Sabins said after Pitt’s 10-9 walk-off victory on Tuesday night.

If the loss was meant to be a wake-up call for the Mountaineers, they’ve had enough of them lately that sleeping soundly at night shouldn’t be easy. WVU was heavily favored in its final three nonconference games of the season against Penn State, Marshall and Pitt, but lost all three by one run.

“Relatively speaking, there hasn’t been a lot of adversity this season, because we’ve won so many games,” Sabins said. “Over the course of a season, these things happen. You lose a game on the road. You get walked-off on the road in the rain. It’s not how you want to finish the midweek series against Pitt, obviously, but I think it’s something our guys will bounce back from.”

It sets up the ultimate bounce-back scenario for the Mountaineers, who now have just six Big 12 games remaining in the regular season. Those six games could very well lead to WVU’s first outright Big 12 championship or to a late-season slump that leads to a great missed opportunity.

It begins at 7 p.m. Friday, when WVU (39-8, 18-4 Big 12) travels to Kansas State (28-20, 14-10) to open a three-game series.

The Mountaineers’ magic number is three to win the Big 12 title, meaning a sweep of the Wildcats would take WVU back to Morgantown as Big 12 champions. Arizona State – the Sun Devils host Houston this weekend – can also factor into the equation. Any loss by Arizona State in a Big 12 game also reduces WVU’s magic number for the title.

So, will this be the WVU team that has dominated and exceeded expectations down the stretch or the WVU team that just lost a four-run lead in the ninth inning against Pitt that faces the Wildcats?

“I think they’re in a good spot,” Sabins said. “These kids have been ultra-resilient and have done a really nice job of bouncing back against any adversity. There’s a few guys who have had some struggles consistently. We have to urge them to make some adjustments. You can’t keep doing the same thing and hurting ourselves in the same way.”

WVU lefty Griffin Kirn (4-1, 3.59 ERA) will get the start, while Kansas State is expected to counter with left-hander Jacob Frost (1-3, 4.56 ERA). Frost’s season has been a roller coaster to this point. He’s had three starts that didn’t get past the first inning, including last weekend’s 11-6 loss against at BYU. He also went 6 2/3 innings against a high-scoring Kansas lineup and allowed two hits, one run and struck out 10.

Kansas State is ranked No. 44 in the RPI, meaning this will be three Quad 1 games for the Mountaineers, who are currently 3-2 against Quad 1 opponents. WVU is 9-9 all-time on the road against the Wildcats, but took two-out-of-three games in its last trip to Tointon Family Stadium in 2023.