Western Kentucky'a amazing odyssey on the baseball diamond this spring continues apace — but it hasn't been all peaches and cream for the Hilltoppers.
Two weeks ago, riding the program's highest national ranking in history — No. 17 in the Baseball America poll — WKU traveled to Boca Raton, Florida and dropped three Conference USA games in quick succession to Florida International.
The Hilltoppers returned the Bowling Green with the bloom off the flower and faced one of their toughest weeks of the season — a home game game against a red-hot Kentucky team last Tuesday and a weekend home conference series against always-strong Louisiana Tech.
WKU promptly won them all in impressive fashion — turning back UK 6-4, winning 9-8 against the Bulldogs on Friday, and, following a rainout on Saturday, defeating Louisiana Tech 5-4 and 22-12 in a Sunday twin-bill sweep.
The Hilltoppers surrendered seven first-inning runs to the Bulldogs on Sunday, and at that point — having already secured the series win — it would have been easy to go through the motions the rest of the way.
The fact that WKU did not choose to do that, instead roaring from behind to win by 10 runs and sweep the series, speaks volumes about the resoluteness of Coach Marc Rardin's third — and best — team on the Hill.
Rardin was philosophical regarding the dramatic comeback.
"It's the first inning, we haven't even given up one of our outs yet," he said. "Is (falling behind) what you want to do? Of course not, but it's the first inning, right?
"When we came in (to bat), it was about getting a couple of guys on. It was about changing the tempo a little bit. Right away, (Joe) Siervo walked and then (Carlos) Vasquez gets a hit, and then, OK, we're talking about getting a run or two in that inning and try to make it like a five-run deficit instead of a seven-run deficit — that's all you're looking to do."
Instead, the Hilltoppers scored 12 in the bottom of the first, and the Bulldogs' will had been broken.
"Offense is all about momentum," Rardin said. "They had all the momentum, and then we got a walk and a hit and immediately, even though they've still got the seven-run lead, momentum starts to shift — and it didn't take them long to go to the bullpen.
"I mean, momentum offensively is everything — that's the name of the game. It's the hits, the offensive production, that really dictates the momentum in the dugout."
Now, the momentum is back on Western's side. Entering this weekend's three-game series at New Mexico State, the Hilltoppers are 38-10 overall, 14-7 in CUSA, and a head-spinning 29-1 at home, in the oh, so friendly confines of Nick Denes Field — establishing a single-season program record for home victories.
WKU's RPI sits at 45.
Even though the Conference USA Tournament is looming — May 21-24 in Lynchburg, Virginia — Rardin's focus isn't on that; not yet, anyway.
"I just want us to play good baseball, and everything else will take care of itself," Rardin said. "It's like someone having a good at-bat, you just put those good at-bats together and it leads to great things. Right now, we're playing well. We're hitting better, we]re having good at-bats, we're putting up some decent linescores.
"So, yeah, that's all we can concentrate on, and I don't want to get ahead to thinking about the conference tournament. I don't want to get ahead of anything right now.
"It's just that they are boys in men's bodies — you just want them to be where their feet are."
Know this: When it comes to WKU baseball in 2025, those feet are standing on historic ground.
