Pat McAfee's Optimism Persists for WVU Baseball After Heartbreaking Loss to UNC

The game was there for the taking on Sunday night, but West Virginia beat itself with two costly errors in the 7th inning that would ultimately change the course of the game.

Tyrus Hall, who has been excellent all season at third base, couldn't cleanly field a sharp grounder, and by the time he gathered the ball and was ready to throw, the runner was already a couple of steps away from first. After a failed sac bunt attempt, WVU had a chance to get out of the inning with a 4-6-3 double play, but Brodie Kresser moved too quickly fielding a grounder and ended up getting no one out. Carolina took full advantage of the extra outs, scoring three in the inning, which was all they needed.

The Mountaineers were that close to moving one win away from playing for a national championship, but now they'll have to do it the hard way – win three games in three days, including beating North Carolina twice.

WVU legend and ESPN personality Pat McAfee expressed his optimism for this Mountaineer team shortly after the game came to an end.

"I don't think this team is phased by much," WVU head coach Steve Sabins said in his postgame press conference following the loss. "They really like playing baseball. They like being together, and so we get to do that. Basically, the mindset is we get to rest, recover, go have a nice practice, and then we get to play ball again."

The Mountaineers and Trojans will go at it once again in Omaha on Tuesday afternoon at 1 p.m. ET. The loser's season will come to an end, and the winner will look to pull off a miracle over the following two days.