Virginia Closes Out Regular Season at Boston College

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Virginia (25-21, 16-17 ACC) will play its final three games of the regular season at Boston College (20-26, 9-21 ACC) beginning Thursday (May 20) at Harrington Athletics Village. The series opener is scheduled for a 5:30 p.m. first pitch and all three contests will air on ACCNX.

Game Coverage: ACCNX is available to authenticated subscribers of ACC Network via the ESPN App. In addition, Thursday and Friday’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.

PROBABLE STARTING PITCHERS
Thursday – 5:30 p.m.
Virginia: LHP Andrew Abbott (6-5, 3.12 ERA, 75.0 IP, 24 BB, 115 SO)
Boston College: RHP Emmet Sheehan (5-4, 3.89 ERA, 71.2 IP, 30 BB, 102 SO)

Friday – 2 p.m.
Virginia: RHP Mike Vasil (6-4, 4.40 ERA, 61.1 IP, 13 BB, 57 SO)
Boston College: RHP Mason Pelio (3-7, 6.33 ERA, 61.2 IP, 38 BB, 54 SO)

Saturday – 11 a.m.
Virginia: LHP Nate Savino (2-2, 3.43 ERA, 39.1 IP, 10 BB, 24 SO)
Boston College: TBA

LEADING OFF

• Virginia has clinched a spot in next weekend’s ACC Tournament taking place in Charlotte and is either tied or within a game of seven different schools in the win column.
• The Cavaliers come into the weekend winners of five of the last six ACC series, including three-straight.
• Virginia has won eight of its last 11 games and are coming off its first ACC series sweep of the season.
• The Cavaliers are 9-9 away from Disharoon Park this season have won their last three road ACC series.
• Virginia has reached 16 ACC wins for the first time since the 2017 season when it won 18 games in the league.
• The series against Boston College will be the first between the two schools since 2018, only two Cavalier position players on the current roster, Alex Tappen and Devin Ortiz, played in all three games.

AGAINST BOSTON COLLEGE

• Virginia owns a 21-6 record all-time against Boston College in a series that first began in 2006. All but one meeting has occurred in ACC regular season action.
• The Cavaliers will make their first trip up to Brighton, Mass. since 2016 when Boston College won the final two games to take their lone series win in eight tries over Virginia.
• The Cavaliers won 14 of the first 15 games against Boston College and own a 6-3 mark since 2014 against BC.
• In the 2018 series, Virginia clinched the series on Sunday with a 10-9, walk-off win in 10 innings. A walk-off sacrifice fly from Charlie Cody scored Justin Novak to win it extra innings. The game took 4 hours and 53 minutes to complete, tied for the fifth longest game in terms of time in UVA history.

A WEEKEND THAT WAS

• Coming off a nine-day layoff for final exams, the Cavaliers clicked on all cylinders in a three-game sweep of Wake Forest last weekend. Since 2009, Virginia is 45-22 against ACC foes in the final two weekends of the regular season. The Cavaliers won their 13-straight home series after breaking for exams.
• The Cavaliers completed a series sweep of Wake Forest last Sunday (May 16) with a 5-4 walk-off win. The series included a 17-0 no-hitter in game one followed by walk-off wins in the ninth inning in both games two and three.
• Virginia came from behind to tie the contest in game two on an Alex Tappen home run in the sixth and Nic Kent two-out RBI single in the eighth inning of game three. It marked the 10^th and 11^th come-from-behind wins of the season for Virginia.
• The shutout in game one was Virginia’s fourth of the season, tied with Florida State for the most in the ACC.
• Prior to this season, Virginia had not produced a walk-off win since 2018. So far, UVA has produced four walk-offs in 2021, all of them occurring in the last 19 games.

ON THE MOUND

• Virginia’s team ERA of 3.76 is the second lowest only to Florida State in the Atlantic Coast Conference and ranks 25th in the NCAA.
• As a staff, Virginia ranks 11^th in the NCAA in strikeouts per nine innings (10.8) and 17^th in total strikeouts (492).
• The Cavaliers have struck out 10 or batters in 10 of the last 12 games and a total of 31 times this season. Virginia is 19-12 when fanning 10 or more batters in game.
• Thursday night starting pitcher Andrew Abbott enters the weekend ranked first in the ACC and third in the country behind Vanderbilt’s Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker with 115 strikeouts. The 115 punch outs are the sixth most in a single season by a UVA pitcher and Abbott is nine strikeouts shy of matching Seth Greisinger for second all-time on UVA’s career strikeout list.
• Among active NCAA pitchers, Abbott’s 13.75 career strikeouts per nine innings is the third highest in all of college baseball.
• Abbott and Mike Vasil are looking to become the first UVA pitchers to reach seven wins since Derek Casey went 7-4 in 2018. Virginia hasn’t had a pair of pitchers win seven games since Adam Haseley, Alec Bettinger and Daniel Lynch one seven-plus in 2017.
• Vasil is responsible for six of the 12 quality starts produced by Virginia pitchers this season.
• Over his last two starts, Nate Savino has thrown 13 innings, allowed three earned runs, walked two and struck out eight. Against Virginia Tech on May 2nd he threw 65 pitches in a career-high seven innings. Virginia is 6-2 in games he starts his season.
• Closer Stephen Schoch’s 25 career saves are the fourth most among active NCAA pitchers. His 12 in two seasons at UVA are tied for the 10^th most in school history. His seven this season are the second amongst ACC closers.

NOTES/TRENDS

• Virginia has trailed in nine of its last 12 wins. The Cavaliers have a total of 11 comeback victories this season.
• Freshman Jake Gelof has started eight straight games (seven-straight) at first base) and has multi-hit efforts in four of them. Against Wake Forest the first year 5-for-11 (.455) with two doubles, a triple, four runs, four walks and five RBI. He clinched the series with a walk-off single in the ninth of game two.
• Appearing in only his fourth game since April 1 and playing in his last game at Disharoon Park, senior Christian Hlinka capped an unforgettable weekend with a walk-off double in the ninth inning of game three against Wake Forest. He came on earlier in the contest as a pinch-hitter recorded only his second hit in as many days.
• Alex Tappen and Brendan Rivoli are each responsible for eight home runs over the course of their Cavalier careers. Both hit their first home runs of the 2021 season in the weekend series against Wake Forest.
• As a pinch-hitter this year, Tappen is 4-for-11 (.364) with three doubles and a home run. The four pinch-hits are the most on the team.
• Sophomore Chris Newell will bring a hit streak of seven games into the series against BC, the longest active streak on the team and the longest of his young UVA career. His batting average has climbed 35 points since April 10 and Virginia is 11-6 in that span.
• Zack Gelof moved to the leadoff spot on April 1 and has a hit in 19 of the 22 games from the top spot. He’s batting .337 (34-for-101) with six doubles, four home runs and 18 RBI batting first for Virginia.