Virginia Falls to TCU, 5-1, in NCAA Fort Worth Regional
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June 5, 2017
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FORT WORTH, Texas — No. 6 national seed TCU bolted to an early 4-0 lead and did not look back in a 5-1 win over the Virginia baseball team Sunday night in a winners’ bracket game at the NCAA Fort Worth Regional at Lupton Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas. The weather-plagued regional featured another long delay Sunday, with UVA and TCU sitting through a five-hour delay before starting at 10:04 p.m. ET.
Virginia (43-15) plays Dallas Baptist (41-20) on Monday at 3 p.m. ET/2 p.m. CT in an elimination game. The winner must then defeat TCU twice in order to advance to the super regional.
Television broadcast designations for Monday will be made after the conclusion of play on Sunday. All games in the tournament will be streamed online via ESPN3, WatchESPN and the ESPN app. WINA Radio (1070-AM/98.9-FM) has the live radio broadcast for all UVA games in the regional.
UVA starter Daniel Lynch (So., Henrico, Va.) worked 2 2/3 innings, allowing four runs (two earned) and five hits with two strikeouts. He took the loss and fell to 7-5 on the year. Alec Bettinger (Sr., Woodbridge, Va.) retired the first 13 batters he faced to keep UVA in striking distance and tossed 5 1/3 innings while allowing just one run, one hit and three walks.
TCU ace Jared Janczak (9-0) fired eight innings and allowed just one run, six hits and one walk with six strikeouts in a dominating performance. Closer Durbin Feltman struck out the side in the ninth inning to strand a pair of baserunners.
Virginia was limited to six hits, with Andy Weber (So., Aurora, Ohio) recording a pair while also driving in UVA’s lone run. TCU also finished with six hits.
TCU (44-16) struck first with a run in the top of the second, parlaying a leadoff double from Nolan Brown into a run on a groundout by Connor Wanhanen. The Horned Frogs pushed their lead to 4-0 in the third while taking advantage of sloppy UVA defense, with a pair of errors leading to two unearned runs.
Janczak retired nine straight batters before UVA broke through for a run in the eighth, getting a leadoff double from pinch hitter Nate Eikhoff (So., Bristow, Va.) and an RBI single from Weber.
TCU scored an insurance run in the ninth on a Zach Humphreys RBI grounder.
2017 NCAA Fort Worth Regional Schedule (all times Eastern and subject to change)
Saturday, June 3
Game 1 — No. 2 Virginia 6, No. 3 Dallas Baptist 3
Game 2 — No. 1 TCU 9, No. 4 Central Connecticut State 6
Sunday, June 4
Game 3 — DBU 6, CCSU 5 (CCSU eliminated)
Game 4 — TCU 5, Virginia 1
Monday, June 5
Game 5 — Virginia vs. DBU (home), 3 p.m.
Game 6 — TCU (home) vs. Winner Game 5, 8 p.m.
Tuesday, June 6
Game 7 — Winner Game 6 vs. Loser Game 6 (if necessary), TBA