Virginia Begins 2022 Campaign at Jerry Bryson Classic

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Virginia is slated to play three games at the Jerry Bryson Classic hosted by Gardner-Webb University beginning Friday (Feb. 18). The Cavaliers will open the season on Friday against Bellarmine at 1 p.m., play host Gardner-Webb on Saturday at 3 p.m. and close out the weekend against NJIT on Sunday at 11 a.m. All three can be heard live on WINA (1070 AM/98.9 FM).

GAME COVERAGE: The three contests will not have a live video stream. Fans in the Charlottesville area can tune in to WINA (1070 AM/98.9 FM) on their radio dials or listen live anywhere on WINA.com. Live stat links for the weekend can be found on VirginiaSports.com. Live in-game updates can be found on the team’s official twitter page (@UVABaseball).

PROBABLE STARTING PITCHERS
Friday – 1 p.m.
Bellarmine: RHP Nolan Pender (2-5, 7.23 ERA, 37.1 IP, 25 BB, 36 SO)
Virginia: LHP Brandon Neeck (2-0, 1.93 ERA, 23.1 IP, 11 BB, 40 SO)
 
Saturday – 3 p.m.
Virginia: LHP Nate Savino (3-3, 3.79 ERA, 54.2 IP, 16 BB, 34 SO)
Gardner-Webb: RHP Joe Simeone (1-3, 5.80 ERA, 35.2 IP, 19 BB, 39 SO) – at UConn
 
Sunday – 11 a.m.
NJIT: LHP Aidan Kidd (2-0, 9.00 ERA, 11.0 IP, 6 BB, 15 SO)
Virginia: LHP Brian Gursky (1-2, 5.27 ERA, 30.1 IP, 11 BB, 26 SO) – at USC

*2021 Statistics

LEADING OFF

• Friday’s game will mark the start of the 134^th season of baseball at Virginia.
• Virginia is 40-15-1 in opening weekends during Brian O’Connor’s 18 years as head coach.
• Virginia has picked up opening day wins in all but five seasons (13-5) under O’Connor’s direction.
• The Cavaliers have been away from Charlottesville on opening weekend in all but three seasons since O’Connor took over in 2004.
• Virginia is seeking its third-straight opening day victory.

THE TOURNAMENT FIELD

• Virginia will play both Bellarmine and NJIT for the first time in program history.
• The Cavaliers have played Gardner-Webb on one other occasion, a 6-2 UVA win in Charleston, S.C. back in 2006.
• Bellarmine competed at the Division I level playing for the first time in 2021 and finished the year 13-36 and included eight wins ASUN Conference wins.
• NJIT won 18 of 22 games before qualifying for the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history. The Highlanders went 1-2 in the Arkansas Regional and jumped out to a 3-0 lead on top-seed Razorbacks in the series opener before falling 13-8.

IN THE POLLS

• For the second-straight season, Virginia comes into the year ranked No. 5 by Baseball America. The Cavaliers were also inside the top 25 of Collegiate Baseball Newspaper (No. 24), USA Today Coaches (No. 21) and the NCBWA (No. 17) national polls.
• After appearing in the program’s fifth College World Series last season, Virginia finished the 2021 season ranked in the top-10 of every major poll and finished as high as No. 6 according to Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball Newspaper, NCBWA and Perfect Game.
• In the annual preseason poll of the Atlantic Coast Conference baseball coaches, Virginia was picked to finish second in the Coastal Division. The Cavaliers received three votes to be the league’s overall champion, second only to predicted winner, Florida State.
• Virginia was picked to finished second in the Coastal Division for the second-straight season and has been either first or second in the annual ACC preseason coaches poll in six of the last seven seasons.

ON THE MOUND

• For the first time in Brian O’Connor’s tenure, Virginia will start all lefthanders in a weekend series.
• The Virginia pitching staff set a school record for strikeouts with 687 last season. The 11.0 strikeouts per game also eclipsed a school mark that was set back in 1949.
• Opening day starter Brandon Neeck will make his first career start on the mound. He made a career-high 22 appearances on the mound last year, all out of the bullpen. Neeck struck out a UVA postseason record, 16 batters in 5.2 innings of relief against ODU in the 2021 NCAA Columbia Regional.
• Saturday starter Nate Savino is the only Cavalier in the weekend rotation with a start in a Virginia uniform. He made 10 of his 13 career starts as a sophomore in 2021 and was inserted into the weekend rotation for the last six ACC series last year.
• Gursky, a graduate transfer from the University of Southern California, comes to Virginia with 53 appearances on the mound, including 15 starts. In the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season he did not allow an earned run over three starts, a total of 12 innings pitched.

NEW CAVALIER BACKSTOP

• Sophomore Kyle Teel will assume the starting catching role in 2020 after 15 of his 53 starts as a true freshman came behind the dish. He played 19 in right field and served as the designated hitter for 19 more.
• Teel was included on the Golden Spikes Award Preseason Watch List, an award in which UVA has boasted that UVA nine semifinalists, the fourth-most in college baseball.
• As a true freshman, Teel led the Cavaliers with a .335 batting average which was the 10^th-highest in the ACC. It was the first time a UVA freshman led the team in hitting since 2008.
• Teel was a third-team All-ACC selection and earned freshman All-America honors from D1Baseball.com (first team), Baseball America (first team), Collegiate Baseball Newspaper and Perfect Game (second team).
• Teel collected a preseason All-America nod from D1Baseball and preseason All-ACC honors from Perfect Game.
• Dating back to last season, Teel has reached base in 26-straight games.

PRESEASON NOTARIETY

• The Cavaliers had seven players included on D1Baseball’s Position Power Rankings – 2B Max Cotier (40), OF Chris Newell (56), 1B Devin Ortiz (29), Catcher Kyle Teel (3), SP Matt Wyatt (52), SP Nate Savino (82) and Brandon Neeck (105)
• On Baseball America’s top-150 baseball players list, Kyle Teel came in at 44, Savino at 74 and Newell at 76.

LOOKING BACK TO 2021

• UVA went 4-12 in its first 16 ACC games and finished and won 14 of its last 20 ACC games to earn the 8^th seed in the ACC Tournament.
• To close out the regular season, Virginia won 10 of its last 14 games.
• Won six-straight elimination games between the NCAA Regional and Super Regional to advance to the program’s fifth College World Series.
• All five College World Series appearances for Virginia have come under head coach Brian O’Connor’s watch. The five trips to Omaha since 2009 are tied for the second-most of any college baseball program.
• Virginia ranked 14^th in the nation with a 3.62 ERA and second in the ACC, the first time in the top-20 since 2014.