West Virginia University shortstop Brodie Kresser lays out to grab a pop up in short left field, in Saturday’s contest against Kansas at Kendrick Family Ballpark. Photo by David Pennock

MORGANTOWN — West Virginia University was once sailing along with a 37-5 overall record and within sight of the Big 12 regular season title.

Sailing no longer are the Mountaineers, who lost eight of their last 11 games to roughly complete the season with a 40-13 record to take into the league tournament this week in Arlington, Texas.

The league title did come West Virginia’s way, as well as the No.1 seed in the tournament.

The valued seed does get the Mountaineers a bye in the first round and moves them straight into the Thursday quarterfinals, where they played the winner of Wednesday’s game between Texas Tech versus Cincinnati game.

Last weekend, West Virginia was swept in three games by second-place Kansas. The short series was in Morgantown and saw the Mountaineers get shut out twice by Jayhawk pitching.

West Virginia University junior Skylar King hits a foul ball, during a trip to the plate against Kansas at Kendrick Family Ballpark on Saturday. Photo by David Pennock

This is a single-elimination tournament, which could prove to be an advantage for WVU, since its pitching staff has suffered some recent injuries and its combined bullpen has been shelled in the season’s last days.

In Thursday’s quarterfinal game, WVU would play the winner of Cincinnati-Texas Tech game.

During the regular season, West Virginia swept a three-game series in Morgantown against Cincinnati — winning by scores of 3-2, 6-4 and 10-5. In another late-season three-game series in Morgantown against Texas Tech, the Mountaineers won 2-of-3 against the Red Raiders.

On Friday, comes the tournament’s semifinal games. The quickly-paced event ends with the championship game on Saturday.

This is a domed stadium, so without tornadoes or other weather-related travel problems, it should be completed as scheduled.

West Virginia University relief pitcher Carson Estridge, in a brief appearance, throws a ball toward home during Saturday’s game against Kansas at Kendrick Family Ballpark. Photo by David Pennock

Pitching will probably be the main determining factor in an event, where one loss chases a team back home to watch the NCAA Tournament selection show, to see what is next.

West Virginia is anything but sizzling hot, coming into Texas.

Pitchers Griffin Kirn and Jack Kartsonas are effective enough, but the four-man bullpen has blown leads in hide-your-eyes ways in recent weeks, where late-inning leads meant nothing in one-run losses to Penn State, Marshall and Pitt and six-run leads weren’t even room enough to hold on.

It would take only three games to wade through this tournament, but few are there hiding in some corners who would pick WVU to win it.

However, the Mountaineers have done enough to be selected to play in the 64-team NCAA Tournament, where just two weeks ago they were being touted as a host of one of the 16 four-team tournaments that begin the ‘big show” road to the eight-team College World Series in Omaha, Neb.