May 24, 2010
2:18 p.m.

CHARLOTTESVILLE — That UVa’s baseball team will host an NCAA regional at Davenport Field is all but certain. The Cavaliers’ prospects for hosting a super regional — should they advance past the tournament’s opening weekend — look great, too.

UVa, the ACC’s regular-season champion, is ranked No. 1 nationally by Baseball America. The Wahoos, 23-7 in ACC play, are 45-10 overall.

On a teleconference this morning, seventh-year coach Brian O’Connor was asked if, heading into the ACC tournament, he believes his team has clinched a No. 8 national seed.

“I don’t know that anything is ever set in stone,” O’Connor said. “You think that you have something figured out, and all of the sudden you’re shocked. We’ve learned that in the past here, so you just never taken anything for granted; you never leave anything in somebody else’s hands.”

That said, O’Connor noted that Virginia closed the regular season by winning two of three games against Miami in Coral Gables, Fla.

“I do think winning the series down at Miami did a lot,” said O’Connor, who was named ACC coach of the year Monday. “Winning the regular season [in the ACC] did a lot for us. No matter what happens in Greensboro, I’d be shocked if we were not one of the top eight national seeds. I think we’ve earned that the entire season. We’ve lost one series the entire year and have been ranked in the top three or four teams in the country all year long and have one of the top two RPIs in the country.

“I don’t know what else you’d have to do to be a top-8 national seed, so I would imagine that we would be.”

The ACC tourney starts Wednesday at NewBridge Bank Park in Greensboro, N.C.

UVa faces No. 8 seed Boston College at noon in the tournament’s opening game. Virginia meets No. 5 seed Florida State at 4 p.m. Thursday and No. 4 seed Miami at noon Saturday.

The championship game is Sunday at 1 p.m.

Jeff White

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