Virginia Hosts William & Mary on Tuesday

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Virginia (13-14) will be back home on Tuesday (April 6) for a midweek matchup against William & Mary (6-13). First pitch is scheduled for 4 p.m. and the contest will air live on ACCNX.

Game Coverage: ACCNX is available to authenticated subscribers of ACC Network via the ESPN App. In addition, Tuesday’s game can be heard locally on WINA (98.9 FM/1070 AM) and anywhere on WINA.com. Links for the broadcast and in-game live stats are available on VirginiaSports.com. Fans can also follow the Virginia baseball official twitter account (@UVABaseball) for in-game updates.

TICKET INFORMATION

Due to the limited number of tickets, the current attendance policy includes pre-sale ticket access for UVA students, 2020 baseball donors and season ticket holders.  If any tickets remain after the pre-sale process, they will made available to the general public on Tuesday (April 6) at 10 a.m.

Fans must purchase a pair of tickets. All tickets regardless of location will be $5. Tickets can be purchased on UVATix.com or from Monday – Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. by calling the Virginia Athletics Ticket Office at 434-924-8821.

PROBABLE STARTING PITCHERS
William & Mary: RHP Jack Cone (0-0, 5.40 ERA, 5.0 IP, 2 BB, 5 SO)
Virginia: RHP Zach Messinger (2-0, 5.68 ERA, 19.0 IP, 11 BB, 20 SO)

LEADING OFF

• Tuesday will be Virginia’s only home game in a 13-day stretch that began on March 30 at George Washington.
• The Cavaliers are 7-2 against non-conference foes and are 5-1 in the midweek this season.
• Virginia comes into Tuesday with an 8-8 record at Disharoon Park.
• The Cavaliers are seeking their third-straight win and have not strung together three-straight since finishing off the 2020 season with three-consecutive victories.

AGAINST WILLIAM & MARY

•  Virginia owns a 78-31-2 record all-time against William & Mary in a series that was first played in 1902, a 27-1 Cavalier victory.
• The two schools have met in all but two seasons (1996 & 2006) since 1968.
• Virginia came-from-behind in an 8-5 victory over William & Mary last season. Logan Michaels broke a 5-5 tie with a two-run homer and Andrew Abbott struck out a then-career high eight batters in three innings of relief to earn the win.

ON THE MOUND

• Righty Zach Messinger will make his first start of the 2021 season and eighth of his career. Virginia is 6-1 in games Messinger starts over the past three seasons.
• Messinger has appeared in 12 games and logged 19 innings of out of the bullpen in 2021, second on the staff only to Blake Bales’ 19.1. Messinger was credited with the win last Tuesday at George Washington after pitching two scoreless innings.
• As a staff, Virginia has struck out 284 batters, the 10th most in the NCAA this season. Collectively, its 10.8 strikeouts per nine innings ranks 24^th in all of college baseball.
• Through 27 games this season, Virginia pitchers own a staff ERA of 3.53, the second lowest in the ACC. The Cavaliers and Florida State are the only two teams in the league with three shutouts this season.
• Closer Stephen Schoch notched his fifth save of the season in the series finale at Georgia Tech, moving him into a tie for the second in the ACC. The sidearmer has 10 saves in a Cavalier uniform and is two shy of cracking UVA’s top-10 all-time. His 23 career saves are the fourth most among active NCAA pitchers.

WEEKEND NOTABLES

• Virginia won the final two games at No. 6 Georgia Tech to claim its first ACC series victory of the season. It marked the first road series win over a top-10 opponent since 2016.
• The Cavaliers did not trail in both of its wins and improved to 11-2 on the season when scoring first.
• The 6-5 loss in the series opener was the fifth one-run loss of the season and the Cavaliers moved to 4-8 in games decided by one or two runs this season.
• Nic Kent delivered the knockout blow to even the series on Friday with a grand slam in the fourth inning. It was Virginia’s second grand slam of the season.
• Virginia had its best offensive day of the ACC season in Saturday’s series finale, plating 11 runs on 13 hits. Six of the nine batters in the lineup delivered multi-hit efforts. Virginia scored six runs in the ninth inning, its highest single-inning output of the season.

MIDWEEK BY THE NUMBERS

• Liberty put a halt to Virginia’s 20-game win streak against midweek opponents on March 24. The Flames were also the last midweek opponent to defeat the Cavaliers prior to the streak starting.
• Virginia is outscoring its midweek opponents 46-18 this season and batting .313 as a team.
• The Cavaliers are pitching to a 2.38 ERA in six midweek contests and are averaging over 10 strikeouts per game

NOTES/TRENDS

• The Cavaliers committed just one error in their three-game series at Georgia Tech, the fewest in a weekend series this season. Virginia ranks fourth in the ACC in fielding percentage (.976) and its 224 assists are the second-most in the league.
• Virginia recorded four sacrifice hits in game two against Georgia Tech, the most against an ACC opponent since 2017. Going into Tuesday, the Cavaliers lead the ACC with 17 sacrifice bunts.
• Devin Ortiz has been scorching over the last 10 games, batting .361 (13-for-36) with four home runs and 12 RBI. Six of his seven extra-base hits this season have come in the last 10 games. The senior has scored a run and hit safely in seven-straight games.
• Zack Gelof hit his third home run of the spring in Saturday’s win over Georgia Tech. He is Virginia’s active leader with 10 career home runs. He ranks third in the ACC with 18 walks this season.
• Alex Tappen was 5-for-6 with three doubles, four runs scored and two RBI in three games against Georgia Tech. He had a pair of pinch-hit doubles in the series. He is responsible for two of the four Cavalier pinch-hits this season.
• Including a shortened 2020 season, Virginia has hit five grand slams in its last 44 games. Since 2000, the most grand slams in a season by a Virginia team is four (2009 & 2013). Four current Virginia players have grand slam in their careers – Kent, Ortiz (2), Newell (2) and Tappen