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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. The Virginia baseball team ventures to Duke this weekend for the second series in ACC play. The Cavaliers and Blue Devils will play a three-game series, beginning with a 3 p.m. game Friday. The teams also will match up at 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday at Jack Coombs Field in Durham, N.C.
The Cavaliers, ranked No. 16 nationally in three polls, downed Radford, 8-2, Tuesday and Navy, 11-5, Wednesday to improve to 13-2 this season. UVa is 1-2 in ACC play after its opening series at NC State last weekend.
Virginia is scheduled to go with RHP Jacob Thompson (Jr., Danville, Va.) Friday, LHP Pat McAnaney (Sr., Syracuse, N.Y.) Saturday and RHP Andrew Carraway (Jr., Marietta, Ga.) Sunday. Duke will counter with RHP Andrew Wolcott Friday, RHP Will Currier Saturday and RHP Grant Monroe Sunday.
Virginia’s pitching staff leads the ACC with a 1.76 earned run average, and the weekend rotation has been extremely impressive as Thompson (0.98), Carraway (1.59) and McAnaney (1.89) all own sub-2.00 earned run averages. The three all rank among the top six in the ACC in strikeouts, with Thompson and McAnaney tied for first with 24 punchouts.
Dan Grovatt (Fr., Tabernacle, N.J.) and David Adams (Jr., Margate, Fla.) pace the Cavaliers at the plate with .425 and .424 batting averages, respectively. Jeremy Farrell (Jr., Westlake, Ohio) and Greg Miclat (Jr., Concord, N.C.) are right behind at .413 and .388 respectively. All four are in double figures in RBI, led by Adams with 18 and Farrell with 16. Grovatt and Miclat each own 14 RBI. Virginia is batting .340 as a team.
Duke has started the season strong, going 14-2 the third-best start in school history. The Blue Devils earned midweek victories over Quinnipiac (5-2) and Richmond (4-2) this week after dropping two of three games in their ACC series with North Carolina last weekend in Durham. Jeremy Gould leads the ACC with a .481 batting average, while Alex Hassan has a league-high 27 hits
Following the Duke series, Virginia returns home next Tuesday to begin a season-long 12-game homestand. UVa will play Stony Brook in 4 p.m. games Tuesday and Wednesday.