PROVO — 2012 was, for the most part, a forgetful for BYU baseball as then-freshman Tanner Chauncey described it.

Still transitioning to the West Coast Conference, Chauncey and the Cougars started the regular season with four wins in their first nine games and never really found a solid footing en route to a 22-27 finish and 10-14 record in WCC play.

Sure, there were good moments to celebrate; Chauncey led the team with a .328 batting average, striking out just eight times in 131 at-bats, and was named to the All-WCC freshman team. After a two-year mission in Brazil, Chauncey returned to a team then led by skipper Mike Littlewood — and the Cougars promptly started the season with just two wins in their first 12 games, all away from home.

Here we go again, Chauncey remembered thinking.

“Then we turned it around and went to the conference tournament, and got a couple of wins away from the regional,” Chauncey remembered. “Ever since then, we’ve had the mindset to get there. We started off hot last year, and this year we have the confidence of a team that is going to be in Stockton, playing for the conference tournament title.”

BYU ultimately lost to Pepperdine and San Diego to end the 2015 season. But the leap to postseason play — even simply in the form of the four-team league tournament — was enough to spark the Cougars into the confident group that sits before Chauncey in his senior season.

“It’s a mindset,” said Chauncey, who currently rates as the toughest to strikeout player nationally with a .339 batting average and 29 extra-base hits. “The coaching staff has instilled in us a buy-in and we know that year in and year out, we’ll be in the conference tournament and have a chance to go to the regional.

“We all know how good we are.”

Ahead of its final home series beginning Thursday at 6 p.m. MDT against Portland (9-34, 5-16 WCC), the Cougars are in first place in the WCC with a 17-4 record and can clinch a berth in the conference tournament against the Pilots. BYU (29-14) will honor its seniors prior at 1 p.m. MDT Saturday prior to its final outing against the Pilots.

For some, the emotions of the final game at Miller Park run the full game.

“There’s a handful of emotions: excitement, sadness, happiness, all at the same time,” said relief pitcher Keaton Cenatiempo, who boasts a 3.97 ERA with eight career saves. “Depending on the outcome (of the series), there will be a handful of emotions. For the most part, I’m excited to go out with a boom at Miller Park.”

At least two wins over the Pilots will keep the Cougars in play for a league title, one they could then potentially clinch at Gonzaga next week.

But a league title isn’t even the final goal for BYU, which finished in a three-way tie for the conference’s regular-season championship a year ago.

The Cougars are hoping to book a spot in the NCAA regionals for the first time since going 31-31-1 in 2002.

“Last year, we struggled toward the end of the year,” said Bronson Larsen, who started the season at catcher but has since moved to the outfield. “At the end of the year, we’re playing hot. It’s all in our hands. I’ve got nothing to lose, and neither do the rest of the guys.”

Under Littlewood, the Cougars have risen from a team that went 397-348-2 under former coach Vance Law into a regular WCC power under Littlewood, who has gone 148-110 record in five seasons at the helm of his alma mater.

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Tanner Chauncey was 4-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored, and Dave Clawson and Keaton Kringle each went 2-for-4 to help lift BYU (18-12) to an 8-3 win over the Wolverines for the visitors’ fourth-straight win Tuesday night.

It hasn’t always been easy, but improvement has been noticed. The Cougars received votes in the weekly national rankings, coming in at No. 18 in the Collegiate Baseball poll while receiving votes in the USA Today coaches’ poll.

The 49-year-old coach credits his team’s improvement to his player’s ever-consistent attitude.

“That’s just something as a coach you try to talk about: don’t get too up or too down. When you play 56 games in 3.5 months, I think you have to do that,” Littlewood said.

“If you get too excited or too down on yourself, you’re going to fall into those slumps … We’ll come out tomorrow and be ready to go again. That’s why I love this team: they stick together and have each other’s backs.”

Regardless, BYU’s five-player senior class of Chauncey, Cenatiempo, Larsen, Mason Marshall and Brady Corless will be remembered as one of the first groups that started an upward trajectory from the mediocrity of the intermountain west.

And, also, for one other thing, Cenatiempo adds.

“We’re just a bunch of guys who compete, no matter the situation,” he said. “We all go out there and do everything we can to help our team win the game.”

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