CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) – West Virginia Virtual Academy celebrated its second graduating class Tuesday at the Clay Center.

The ceremony featured a keynote speech and performance from West Virginia native and season six winner of America’s Got Talent’ Landau Eugene Murphy Jr., where he set out to inspire the class.

The class graduated 140 students, with eight earning a Promise Scholarship and 26 intending to attend college in the fall.

The academy’s director Doug Cipoletti said the virtual learning is about more than sitting behind a screen.

“Then we provide this [ceremony] where kids can actually come together and meet one another and build those relationships,” Cipoletti said. “So yes, we’re a virtual school, but there’s a lot more to it than just being behind a computer and I think that really shows today.”

West Virginia Virtual Academy is a K-12 school.

West Virginia Democrats have a competition for leader of the state party.

Teresa Toriseva, who currently serves as first vice chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party, says she is running for the top spot currently held by Mike Pushkin, who also serves as a state delegate from Charleston.

“This is not a civil war within the Democratic Party. On the contrary, the party is quite unified in message and in mission. And that’s what I found as I’ve been campaigning to run for chair, and I’ve never believed it to be more true,” Toriseva said on MetroNews Midday. “It’s an exciting time for what is a growing, robust opposition party.”

But, “There has been a call for us to prepare for the future better and differently than the past and one of those things that I’m going to be focusing on is building relationships with coalition members from groups that think like us, groups that want to work together with us, from labor to women’s groups to organizing groups that are on the ground doing the work, bringing messages to voters.”

Toriseva is a Wheeling attorney who ran in 2024 for state attorney general, losing in the general election.

Democrats, which used to be the dominant political party in West Virginia, now have almost 327,000 registered voters in the state, about 27% of the overall number of registered voters.

The Republican Party has more than 521,000 registered voters, about 43% of the total number.

Toriseva says Democrats have had a successful period of candidate recruitment that can serve as a base for revitalization.

“Democrats are back, and does that mean we’re going to look like we did a decade ago? No, it’s a new party, and we’re moving forward in a new way, but the future is going to look very different than the past,” she said.

Democrats, under the direction of their own bylaws and state code, are having an organizational meeting at 3 p.m. Saturday in Charleston. The meeting’s focus will be on the election of officers. The meeting will be broadcast to the public via wvdemocrats.com/live

Toriseva has worked alongside Pushkin as one of the top officers of the party for the past several years.

“It’s either have an election now or anoint the incumbent for four more years, and so I do think that elections are healthy, that competitive elections are a sign of a growing and robust party and I don’t think that it’s any indication of a civil war,” Toriseva said.

Pushkin, in response, agreed that anyone is entitled to run for chair and make their case to the members of the executive committee.

And he said the resurgence of the West Virginia Democratic Party has been the result of the hard work of county committees, labor organizations, women’s clubs, Young Democrats, grassroots activists, candidates and countless volunteers across the state.

“What leadership does deserve credit for is creating a plan, bringing people together around that plan, and providing the tools and support necessary to execute it. Our record-breaking candidate recruitment effort did not happen by accident,” Pushkin said.

He said party leaders developed an organizing strategy, held weekly recruitment calls, engaged county leaders and allied organizations, launched the first large-scale candidate recruitment texting program in party history and raised funds to cover filing fees for candidates willing to step forward and put their names on the ballot.

“The question before us now is not who gets credit. The question is whether we continue building on that momentum or allow ourselves to become distracted by internal disagreements while Republicans remain deeply divided,” Pushkin said.

“My focus remains exactly where it has always been: bringing Democrats together, supporting our candidates and taking the fight to Republicans every single day.”

GRANVILLE, W.Va. — It was never going to be easy.

Not with the recent history in the Kentucky-West Virginia series, which consisted of four postseason contests decided by one or two runs across the last two years ahead of Monday’s meeting in the Morgantown Regional Championship at Kendrick Family Ballpark. 

Sure enough, Kentucky strung together five straight hits with two outs in the eighth, including a three-run home run from Hudson Brown and a solo shot from Ethan Hindle to tie the winner-take-all affair at 5.

But West Virginia has consistently shown the ability to not waver, including one night earlier when it rallied with five runs in the ninth inning to knock off the Wildcats, 11-9.

This time around, the Mountaineers relied on pitcher Dawson Montesa in relief one day after a 122-pitch outing against Wake Forest. Montesa recorded a pair of pivotal outs in the top of the 10th inning, setting the stage for Armani Guzman’s walk-off single to center in the bottom of the 10th that gave WVU a 6-5 victory.

“That was fun. I couldn’t draw it up any better,” second-year WVU head coach Steve Sabins said. “Everything that you love about coaching and everything you love about players was on full display this weekend. It was cinema and had literally everything you can imagine. If you keep going and stick through adversity, then you can do incredible things.”

With the win, West Virginia (43-15) will play host to Cal Poly (39-22) in a best-of-three Super Regional series with the winner advancing to the College World Series. The Mountaineers and North Carolina are the only teams to qualify for a Super Regional each of the last three years.

Guzman’s single came off of Jack Bennett, who began his outing with 14 consecutive strikes and retired six straight Mountaineers over the eighth and ninth innings collectively.

“That was my third at bat against him,” Guzman said. “He got me to pop out on change-ups twice. That at bat, I wanted to see him deeper. I wanted to hit the ball as hard as I could and stay composed.”

The bottom of the 10th began with Brodie Kresser’s leadoff single against Bennett, who then missed with a full count offering to Ben Lumsden that put two on to start the inning.

Tyrus Hall then got ahead 2-0, but popped up a sacrifice bunt attempt for the first out.

Disappointment didn’t last long as Guzman got ahead 2-0 and hit a solid single that allowed Kresser to score the winning run.

It was another memorable postseason moment from Guzman, who a year ago was named MVP of the Clemson Regional.

“He likes the moment. He loves to win,” Sabins said of Guzman. “He’s probably the best athlete in the country. That doesn’t hurt him either. I love his makeup and mentality.”

Game 7 of the Morgantown Regional had a little bit of everything, including a bounce-back effort from Maxx Yehl.

The Big 12 Pitcher of the Year was knocked around and didn’t make it out the first inning Friday in what amounted to an 11-9 loss to UK. 

This time around, he worked five effective innings and allowed one run on three hits. The southpaw struck out six without issuing a walk and was efficient, throwing 42 of 67 pitches for strikes.

“Grateful the coaches believed in me to give me the ball,” Yehl said, “and I was excited to get back out there and help the team win.”

After keeping UK (33-23) off the scoreboard in the top of the first, Yehl returned to the mound in the second the beneficiary of a 1-0 lead after a dropped third strike allowed Sean Smith to reach and Gavin Kelly to score from third. Kelly had doubled with one out off Wildcats’ starting pitcher Jackson Soucie.

Guzman’s speed was the biggest factor in WVU doubling its lead in the third.

He reached on a bunt single, stole second on a failed pickoff attempt, moved to third on Kelly’s groundout and crossed the plate on a Paul Schoenfeld groundout.

Brown’s solo home run off Yehl in the fourth allowed the Wildcats to get back to within one run.

Yehl induced an inning-ending double play off the bat of Owen Jenkins to end the top of the fifth and the Mountaineers put together their best offensive inning in the bottom of that frame.

It began with Guzman’s double to left, which was followed by Kelly’s base-on-balls and a run-scoring single from Schoenfeld.

Matthew Graveline made it a three-run margin later that inning when he doubled to plate Kelly.

Kelly’s solo home run in the sixth — his third of the regional and 16th this season — left WVU with a 5-1 advantage. He was named Most Valuable Player of the Morgantown Regional.

“It’s a team MVP. It’s unreal the stuff that everybody on this team did,” Kelly said. “Everyone on the team deserves that. We have a team full of MVPs. It’s hard to kill when you have that.”

Ian Korn made that lead hold up until the eighth despite retiring the first two batters of that inning. Tyler Bell prolonged it with a single, Luke Lawrence followed with another and Brown belted his second long ball of the night to bring UK to within one run.

“We weren’t trained at any point throughout the year to ever think we’re out of a game,” Brown said. “Coach always tells us to keep fighting.”

Hindle made it back-to-back home runs, at which point Korn was lifted for Chansen Cole.

Cole allowed a single to Braxton Van Cleave, but struck out Tyler Cerny to end the inning.

In the ninth, Cole issued a leadoff walk to Carson Hansen, but he was stranded at second.

Kentucky then made consistent hard contact against Cole in the 10th, including several foul balls by mere inches that otherwise likely would’ve gone as extra-base hits.

With Cole and Hindle involved in a lengthy battle, Sabins elected to pull Cole mid at-bat in favor of Montesa, who entered with the count 1-2.

Montesa ultimately walked Hindle, which left Kentucky with runners at first and second and one out. But the right-hander, whose velocity was in the high 90s, followed it up by striking out Van Cleave and got Cerny to fly out to left for what wound up Kentucky’s final at bat of the season.

“I was like I don’t know if we have something left in the tank to get this dude out,” Sabins said. “We might be standing here watching the next pitch as a Wildcat crosses home plate. We rushed Montesa. It wasn’t exactly a genius move, but it ended up playing out well.”

Montesa recorded his second win in as many days by recording the last two outs of the 10th.

Guzman led WVU and all players with three hits.

Brown drove in four of his team’s five runs.

“I would think anybody that watched our team play would have to respect what we’ve been able to do,” UK coach Nick Mingione said. “Not an easy place to play like anywhere on the road in our league, but anybody that follows baseball, I really believe they would say we have gained a lot of respect.”

The third largest crowd in Kendrick Family Ballpark history of 4,607 took in the instant classic.

“It’s been cemented that this is the best college baseball atmosphere in the country,” Sabins said. “Nowhere can provide the energy that just happened in Morgantown. The place was absolutely electric.” 

All-Morgantown Regional Team

C: Matt Conte, Wake Forest

1B: Armani Guzman, West Virginia

2B: Gavin Kelly, West Virginia

SS: Tyler Bell, Kentucky

3B: Tyrus Hall, West Virginia

LF: Ben Lumsden, West Virginia

CF: Javar Williams, Wake Forest

RF: Braxton Van Cleave, Kentucky

DH: Luke Lawrence, Kentucky

P: Chansen Cole, WVU

P: Dawson Montesa, WVU

Regional MVP: Gavin Kelly, WVU