‘Why not us?’ How Wichita State baseball culture spurred AAC tournament final run

A dejected silence filled the Wichita State baseball team’s bus following a loss they could all agree felt like a gut punch.

They were three outs away from vanquishing East Carolina and advancing to the American Athletic Conference tournament championship, but squandered a two-run lead with one of the most bizarre walk-off losses imaginable by allowing a runner to steal home plate while the pitch and catcher fiddled with their PitchCom.

It could have been, and maybe should have been, the final blow to WSU, a team that had lost 17 of 21 games in the second half of a season that began with no expectations under first-year head coach Brian Green.

But senior ace Caden Favors, who had just pitched a superb game on three days’ rest in a losing cause, sensed a season-defining moment and felt moved to stand before his team with an impassioned plea.

“With as young and as passionate as we are, it’s hard not to hang your head and beat yourself up after a game like that,” Favors said. “I thought there was a way we could use a loss like that. I just told the guys, ‘If you’re mad, use it. If you’re upset, use it. That game is over. It happened and we can’t change anything. We still have one more.’”

Mauricio Millan, a junior catcher and fellow returner from last season, felt different after Favors’ speech.

“I’m not going to lie, my head wasn’t down, but it felt like we just got punched in the gut,” Millan said. “We were all frustrated and Caden’s talk to the whole team was definitely a pick-me-up for all of us, I know at least it was for me. It was like, ‘You know, he’s right.’ We can either pout or we can fight and compete our (butts) off and make it to the ship.”

WSU had about a four-hour break in between games, which allowed the team to return to their hotel and mentally recover from the stunning defeat before returning to BayCare Ballpark on Saturday to play an elimination game against a top-10 team for the third time in Clearwater, Fla.

Green and his coaching staff kept their message positive following the first game and before the second game, but the coach admitted no coach speak can resonate with players as much as a peer-to-peer message can.

Especially after Favors had just pitched another superb game, lasting seven innings and limiting ECU to two earned runs on just three days’ rest after throwing 113 pitches in Tuesday’s 8-2 win over UAB.

“I couldn’t be more proud of his development and his evolution as a leader,” Green said of his staff ace. “Coaches can say whatever, but when a guy like that gets up there and talks, people listen. I definitely think Caden’s speech really had an impact on the guys.”

Motivated by Favors’ words and a belief WSU’s hitting would prevail against ECU’s short-staffed and fatigued pitching, the Shockers showed an uncanny amount of resolve for a team that was 22-26 a little more than three weeks ago.

With the season on the line in Saturday’s nightcap against ECU, WSU started four freshmen, including Brady Hamilton, who hadn’t recorded a win on the mound since March 23. And all four played major roles in the Shockers’ 12-2, run-rule victory over ECU.

Hamilton held ECU to two runs in five innings to pick up the win, Lane Haworth blew the game open with a three-run home run in the fifth inning and Kam Durnin and Camden Johnson both recorded two hits and two RBIs.

“The resilience of this group actually does still surprise me because it’s so uncommon,” Green said. “They are as resilient and as tough as any group I’ve ever been around. It feels like this is Year 3 or Year 4, the culture is so good. If you look at our April, we were supposed to fizzle and fade away in May. And then to lose like we did earlier (Saturday), that was a total gut punch. But they come back and put up 12 runs against a top-10 team, that’s such a championship effort. That’s what teams do when they’ve won for a long time and are used to winning.”

After a purely miserable April, WSU (32-28) revived its season with 10 wins in the last 12 games in May to set up the most important baseball game the program has played since the Gene Stephenson era: an 11 a.m. championship showdown (ESPNews or ESPN+) against a more-rested and equally-hot Tulane team for conference’s automatic berth into the NCAA tournament.

The program hasn’t sniffed a conference tournament championship appearance since Stephenson’s reign ended in 2014, a drought the current-day players are keenly aware of.

“We want to be the ones to break the curse for Wichita,” Millan said. “We’ve been talking about it the entire tournament, almost speaking it into existence and manifesting it. Why can’t it be us? We feel like we’re here for a reason. We got hot for a reason. It’s not a coincidence. We’re one win away. So why not us?”

“There’s something different going on here,” Favors said. “I don’t like blowing smoke to people, but this is something special.”

Finding enough pitching for a fifth game in six days will be a challenge, one that was keeping Green and his staff up close to midnight in their hotel room figuring out, but the first-year coach says the team’s sheer will and relentless positivity can overcome mental and physical fatigue.

“These guys take a lot of pride in knowing they’re the bricklayers to bringing (WSU baseball) back,” Green said. “But they’re not satisfied at all. This team thinks they can go to the College World Series. They’re nuts. But the way we’re playing right now? We’re a tough team.”