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Baseball
Virginia Falls to Richmond in Home Finale
May 15, 2018
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Richmond (29-21) scored the first 11 runs of the night on its way to an 11-3 victory over Virginia (27-22) at Disharoon Park. The Cavaliers concluded their non-conference schedule and will wrap up the regular season with a three-game series at Wake Forest beginning Thursday (May 17).
The Spiders posted multi-run innings in all but four trips to the plate, including two runs in the first and three more in the second to open up a 5-0 advantage.
Richmond starting pitcher Brendan McGuigan earned his first win of the season after tossing five innings of one-hit baseball. The junior faced the minimum over the first 4.1 innings and didn’t allow a base hit until the top of the fifth. He walked the first batter of the game and sat down the next 12 batters in a row.
“We didn’t play well in any phase of the game,” head coach Brian O’Connor said. “Credit Richmond, we knew coming in that they had a nice offensive ball club, they’re really having a good year. “We certainly didn’t play up to our capability.”
The Cavaliers broke through in the bottom of the seventh on the second double of the contest by Alex Tappen (Lower Gwynedd, Pa.). The freshman finished the night 2-for-3 with two doubles and an RBI. He has now hit safely in six-straight games.
Junior Jake McCarthy (Scranton, Pa.) drove in the other two runs with an RBI ground out in the seventh and a sac fly in the ninth. In his two games since returning from injury he has three RBI, upping his season total to eight.
Jack Weiller (Waccabuc, N.Y.) delivered his third hit of the year and scored the game’s third run in the ninth inning.
The Cavaliers used six pitchers, with freshman Blake Rohm (Superior, Colo.) logging a season-high 3.2 innings. He retired nine of the first 10 batters he faced and stranded a pair of runners in in the top of the second to prevent any further damage.
Virginia will open up the series against Wake Forest on Thursday (May 17) in Winston-Salem at 6 p.m.
Additional Notes
– The Spiders snapped a 14-game losing streak to Virginia.
– Grant Donahue (Berlin, Md.) pitched a scoreless ninth inning in his first action since April 14.
– Christian Hlinka (Frenchtown, N.J) recorded his fourth hit of the season, first since April 18, with a pinch-hit single to lead-off the bottom of the seventh.
– Virginia closed out the regular season with a 16-6 record against non-conference opponents and went 9-4 against teams from the Commonwealth.