Jan 5, 2024 By Bob Hertzel 12 min read

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The calendar year of 2023 was bathed in controversy through the WVU athletic department but somehow, as the sands shifted under their feet, the athletes themselves maintained their traction and it turned into a year of superstar performers and performances not seen in recent years.

The football team, led by Garrett Greene, Beanie Bishop, Zach Frazier and Jaheim White, won a bowl game and finished with a 9-4 record after being given little hope of winning as many as four games coming into the season. The men’s and women’s basketball teams reached the NCAA Tournament and the men’s soccer team reached the Final Four for the first time ever before being eliminated.

So, let’s look back on the best of the best … the athletes who made 2023 an interesting, fun and sometimes controversial year.

But before we do that, it must be mentioned that one of the year’s greatest highlights was seeing former football coach Don Nehlen, who welcomed in the New Year with his 88th birthday, had his name added to the other greats who will forever stand memorialized in Mountaineer Field.

Let’s start with our Athlete of the Year, and there are some who may argue, but this little corner of the world invites you to go elsewhere to do it because we believe it unquestionably belongs to baseball’s JJ Wetherholt.

JJ Wetherholt

No one in WVU baseball history had a year like Mountaineer second baseman JJ Wetherholt. What he did on the baseball diamond was the equivalent of what Pat White did on the football field; what Da’Sean Butler did on the basketball court. His stats were unmatched in the school’s history and among the best in the nation as he became a unanimous All-American.

Forgotten in the year he had was that it was interrupted in mid-season by a thumb injury that put him out of action for a number of games. Let it not be forgotten how important in hitting, throwing and catching a baseball the thumb is, and Wetherholt shook it off as if it never happened.

He came back and helped complete a sweep of TCU in the midst of a 10-game winning streak with two hits and four RBIs in his return game and followed that up with a double and homer and five RBIs against Penn State.

Stats and awards

Wetherholt hit .449 for the season, tying the school record with 101 hits. He had 16 home runs, 60 RBIs and 36 stolen bases as he became the Big 12’s Player of the Year. He would also be a unanimous first team All-American, an Academic All-American.

Lasting image

JJ Wetherholt, standing in the batter’s box, awaiting the pitcher’s first pitch of any at bat. The tension crackled through the air. You knew the pitcher feared what would happen if he threw a strike, for Wetherholt seldom took the first pitch. He knew he might hit one out of the park, or in the gap for extra bases, or line a single somewhere, then steal second base. His swing was as sweet as Kevin Pittsnogle’s 3-point stroke, as terrifying as seeing Owen Schmitt come running at you on third-and-1. It was Geno Smith to Stedman Bailey on a baseball diamond, both beautiful and terrifying.

Last image 2

You know what kind of player he was. This is another way he excelled, after granting a long post-game media session on the field and then stopping to talk to a couple of reporters a little more in depth, he happened to notice a younger writer off to the side. Instead of hustling off to the locker room, he stopped to ask him if he got everything he needed. Pitchers wish he were that nice to them.

Comment

“He has a chance to be the best hitter I’ve coached in my 35 years.” — Coach Randy Mazey.

Football

Zach Frazier

What can you say that hasn’t been said about Zach Frazier, who came out of Fairmont Senior to follow in the footsteps of the Stills brothers and lived up to the challenge as an All-American Center. But Frazier was so much more of that … he was the poster child for what Neal Brown was trying to build at WVU. He was as good academically as he was in football, he was involved heavily in community relations and he made headlines only on the field.

“I can’t say enough about Zach Frazier,” Neal Brown said. “So appreciative of him and his family. I think one play sums up who he is for his entire career, and I just hope for our fan base.”

That play was his last as a college football player. He had finished his block at the line of scrimmage when QB Garrett Greene completed a pass to Hudson Clement, who was struggling for a first down. Frazier hustled downfield, picked Hudson up and moved him and piled forward for a first down.

But as he did he broke a bone in his leg. Most players would lay there, but Frazier was aware of everything going on. He knew if the training staff came out it would have meant a 10-second runoff in a game WVU would win on a TD pass with 23 seconds left, so he crawled, then limped off the field.

Lasting image

One other image of Zach Frazier comes to mind, not as heroic but certainly as effective and it came when he engaged a block down around the 5-yard line and drove the defender backward about 7 yards into the end zone, where the red-faced defender (with embarrassment, not anger) wound up on his back in the most obvious pancake block of the season.

Beanie Bishop

Over the years fans have moaned about the players who left WVU through the transfer portal, but the truth was, few ever really became stars.

Beanie Bishop came into the program from Minnesota after having played also at Western Kentucky. He was mostly unknown, not a starter in Minnesota, but by the end of the year in Morgantown, given an opportunity to show not only his ability but his character, cornerback Beanie Bishop was the 13th consensus All-American at the school.

Bishop was a one-man pass defense. He finished the year with 20 passes broken up, leading the nation and one shy of Brian King’s school record. He had four interceptions, and tossed in 67 tackles.

There was no showmanship involved, just what he was expected to do and acted like it.

“I kind of kept things like the individual accomplishments to myself,” he said. “I want to win first. If we win, all the other accolades will come in.”

Oh, by the way, with Preston Fox injured for the bowl game, he added punt returner to his resume. He’d never before returned a punt but the first one that came his way he took back for 69 yards and touchdown.

Comment

“I came on a mission. I told the guys that some people change schools to get money, to do all those different things. I just set a goal. I want to go to the NFL. I wanted to go somewhere where I had the opportunity to play and make plays. This is the best spot for me. I’m glad I chose West Virginia. The fans, the coaches … it helped a lot.”

Garrett Greene

When the season started there was a segment of WVU fans who were clamoring for Nicco Marchiol to get the starting job, but Neal Brown all along sensed what was inside Greene, a quarterback with a linebacker’s disposition. Even a tough game against Penn State in the opener when he missed a lot of easy, short passes, and then a leg injury six plays in the Pitt game couldn’t dissuade Greene.

Truth was Brown hadn’t set him loose in the Penn State game, then the injury in the Pitt game which cost him Greene the following game, forced Brown to use only part of his offense, waiting for Greene to get healthy to display what he had originally designed.

The result was through the second half of the season, Greene blossomed, he ran when he had to run, he threw deep and he exerted a brand of leadership that had been seen before with Skyler Howard, who willed WVU to its victories.

Greene grew as the offense grew and WVU closed the season with three consecutive wins, scoring 106 points in the three games against Cincinnati, Baylor and North Carolina.

He threw for 707 yards in the third game and completed 40 of 67 passes with a touchdown and ran 34 times for 333 yards with 5 touchdowns.

He threw the game-winning pass in the final seconds of the Baylor game and, not to be forgotten, he threw what seemed to be a game-winning pass against Houston with 21 seconds left only to see the Cougars come back against the WVU defense and win on a Hail Mary.

Comment:

“Garrett Greene is a winner, and I hope our fans appreciate him. He’s about all the right things.” — Neal Brown.

Jaheim White

He stands only 5-feet, 7-inches tall, but then doesn’t WVU have a history of short running backs making long gains?

White was a freshman out of York, Pa., who had electrifying potential but CJ Donaldson was entrenched as the starting running back. He was penciled in to spell Donaldson and grow into the job.

He showed early he could do things, starring in the annual spring game and debuting with a 100-yard performance against Duquesne.

But it wasn’t until Donaldson was injured that White exploded and became one of the most dangerous running backs in the Big 12, if not the country.

He finished the year averaging 7.7 yards per attempt, second in the nation and tops among all freshmen at D-1, as were the 842 yards he would gain even though he had barely more than 100 carries.

If anyone wanted to know just how good he was, it’s on tape in the Cincinnati game when he ran for 204 yards.

Oh, yeah, he also caught the game-winning pass against Baylor in the closing seconds of the final regular season game, which led to the lasting image of White.

Lasting image

Photographer Dale Sparks captured the most memorable moment of White’s stunning freshman season as he snapped a shot just before the football landed in his hands in the end zone on a 29-yard wheel route out of the backfield with 23 seconds left to beat Baylor, 34-31, to give WVU an 8-win regular season. No theatrics from him, just another day at the office for the freshman.

Men’s basketball

Erik Stevenson

We know, it seems a lifetime ago that Erik Stevenson wore the WVU jersey, but if anyone represented what last year was in Mountaineer athletics it was him.

He was an exciting player, the team’s leading scorer and the league’s leading talker.

He was excitable, so much so that he got himself into trouble a couple of times with technical fouls, one of which helped cost WVU a ball game.

But you couldn’t help but notice him, you couldn’t help but like him.

He averaged 15.5 points a game and, along the way, he scored 20 or more nine times, ending the regular season with five straight games of 23 or more.

And when it was over, he offered one lasting comment.

“Through the ups and downs, this was the best year of my life. I made a promise to myself I would give this university everything I had and I did that. It was never about me, but about the name on the front of that jersey. I will always cherish the memories from playing in the Coliseum and hearing all 14,000 of you come to life. I can’t thank you enough.”

Women’s basketball

JJ Quinerly

Quinerly was the opposite of Stevenson. Quiet, modest. Didn’t so much, did a lot.

Her most telling comment was one that came when she decided not to transfer after Coach Dawn Plitzowitz left following one year as coach.

“Me staying here, it was about being involved with everyone else who was staying. Messiah (Hunter), Jayla (Hemingway), Kyah (Watson) and everyone else.”

And it didn’t matter who was coaching because she’s the same talented, determined athlete for new coach Mark Kellogg, who got the team off to a 12-0 start, as she was last year. And last year she was All-Big East.

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Late last season she suffered what seemed to be a serious ankle injury, but she would have none of it. She bounced right back, understanding that her teammates needed her.

Men’s soccer

Marcus Caleira and Yutaro Tsukada

You don’t go to the Final Four without talent and Coach Dan Stratford, who led the Mountaineers to their first final four, had talent in bunches as it put together a 17-3-4 season.

Sophomore Marcus Caleira and senior Yutaro Tsukada were both named All-Americans by College Soccer News.

Lasting image

You want an image to take with you. How about Tsukada rocketing a shot past the Louisville goalkeeper in the 72nd minute at Dick Dlesk Stadium before a sold out crowd for a 1-0 victory that opened the post-season run to the doorstep of the NCAA championship.

Tsukada led WVU with 33 points on the year, sixth most in the NCAA, on 12 goals and nine assists. He scored six goals in the post-season, including three in the NCAA Tournament.

Caldeira scored 12 goals this season to match Tsukada with three assists.

Talk about a memorable moment, how about a hat trick of three goals against No. 1 Marshall in a 5-2 win in Morgantown.

Comment

“There’s no way we don’t believe, there’s no way. We were a .500 team last year that didn’t make the national tournament and now we’re in the Final Four So, what is there to fear? What is there to lose? There wouldn’t have been that many that circled us for a College Cup in 2023. We felt otherwise, we believed that this was a part of our progress and could be something we could achieve.” — Coach Dan Stratford.