MORGANTOWN — The West Virginia University athletic spirit has always been that of the underdog trying to scratch and claw its way to the top.

Didn’t ever really matter how good they had gotten. Whether they had Jerry West or Sam Huff out there on the field; whether it was Major Harris or Pat White at quarterback; whether Da’Sean Butler was sinking last second shots or Geno Smith passing for eight touchdowns in a game or Steve Slaton rushing for five of them.,

They have won 1,186 games in the history of their football and basketball programs, but never a national championship.

They came close, but always that brass ring was just out of their grasp.

This year’s baseball team and that sport’s program in general has them again on road toward being able to host a championship parade down High Street in Morgantown and it just may be time for them to lay aside that underdog tag and take on the aura of a championship program.

They open play in the NCAA Super Regional at 2 p.m. Saturday on ESPN against a seven-time National Champion in LSU with the first of a three-game series that will decide which team moves forward to Omaha and the College World Series. LSU owns 18 trips to collegiate finals; WVU looks for its first.

First-year head coach Steve Sabins thinks it’s time for them to understand that they belong among the elite and to go out approach it not hungry for recognition but for accomplishment.

“I think it would be fair to say we’re a top 16 program in the country, for the last two years, at least,” Sabins said. “I think we’ve built something really special in Morgantown. We’ve had 12 big leaguers in the last 10 years. We won an outright title in the Big 12 and we’ve won two Big 12 titles in the last three years.

“To say that our program is in the upper echelon and the best of the best when it comes to Division I baseball would not be an understatement,” Sabins said. “I think that was proven this weekend.”

In Sabins’ mind, WVU has entered a new era and the frustrations of the past mean nothing, just as LSU’s success has no connection to what will transpire over the next three days.

It’s time for WVU to prove itself at the highest level.

“You have to work harder than everyone else,” he says to his players and anyone else who will listen. “LSU has good players. Texas has good players. Guess what, Kentucky has good players. People don’t choose West Virginia over some of those traditional powers all the time. We’re not going to be better than them by working half as hard.”

Realistically, of the 16 teams left playing baseball, they have the longest odds to win it all, but as they begin play on Saturday there is a lesson to be learned in the Belmont Stakes, which will be run that same day.

Twenty-three years ago, a race horse named Sarava won the Belmont Stakes despite going to post at 70-to-1 and paying $142 to win.

It happens and there’s nothing to say that WVU can’t do it.

Yes, they are on the road against the No. 6 team in the nation, but this season. That may be a positive, not a negative, for they are 24-5 on the road.

“We didn’t address it because the more you talk about it, the more it can manifest itself into something,” Sabins said. “All these guys came to West Virginia to play in games with the biggest crowds, against the best teams in the best venues. Most of them, their games elevated in this type of environment.

“They love the energy. They love the atmosphere. They want the ball in the big moment.”

Jay Johnson, the LSU coach who had to come from 5-1 behind against a true underdog team in a sub-.500 Arkansas-Little Rock to advance to this Super Regional, understands that WVU presents a real challenge to his team for they play the game in their own chaotic fashion.

“They definitely have an identity as a team on offense because they like to bunt, they like to run, cause a lot of chaos, they’re aggressive with their swings towards mistakes and they’re good when they get rolling,” he said on a Louisiana radio station this week.

To take the chaos out of the equation he will lean on his two top starting pitchers, Anthony Eyanson, who is 10-2 with a 2.50 ERA, and Kade Anderson, who is 9-1 with a 3.28 ERA.

Considering that this is the school that produced the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Paul Skenes, it is fair to assume these two are the real deal.

“I really like the games where I’m writing [Kade Anderson’s] name in the lineup card going out there to start the game,” Johnson said, “and it’s no secret, baseball hasn’t changed in terms of what winning baseball is, and it starts on the mound and really ends on the mound.”

WVU counters with a pair of solid pitchers of their own capable of taking chaos out of the LSU offense in left-hander Griffin Kirn, who is 5-2 with a 3.13 ERA, and Jack Kartsonas, who is 6-3 with a 2.93 ERA.

“Kartsonas is incredible,” Sabins said, only partially joking when he added, “He’s about 36 years old, got a wife, some kids, a fu Manchu, been through the ringer. He looks like he belongs in West Virginia. The guy’s a rock star. He’s a worker, shows up every day with a great attitude and loves to compete.”

And on Kirn, who has been the big game pitcher all year, he added:

“That kid never gives in. Good pitchers bend, but they never break. He just keeps going, throwing his best bullets.”