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

Leading 9-6 entering the top of the ninth, the Bat Cats were three outs away from advancing to the Super Regional. Then, just as what happened last year against West Virginia, disaster struck at the worst possible time.

Nile Adcock, entering his fourth inning of work, walked the bases loaded. The Cats’ bullpen, which had been excellent to that point, brought in the tying runs on a walk, a sacrifice fly, and a balk.

Yes, you read that correctly. It didn’t even take a hit to tie the game. The hit came after West Virginia tied the game, when Paul Schoenfeld homered deep to right field to give the Mountaineers an 11-9 lead.

Kentucky fell behind 3-0 in the first inning, took a 7-6 lead in the fourth, and it looked like they were on their way to a third straight win and regional championship.

What stings the most is that Kentucky was in a worse spot against West Virginia last year in the Regional round of the NCAA Tournament. Leading 12-7, Kentucky completely collapsed and lost 13-12 as their season came to an end.

That didn’t happen Sunday night this year. Kentucky will play West Virginia again on Monday. The winner of that game will advance to the Super Regionals.