No. 11 Virginia Prepares for Midweek Bouts With VCU, Georgetown

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – No. 11 Virginia (26-9) will play a pair of midweek contests beginning with a road game at VCU (19-15) on Tuesday (April 19) at The Diamond in Richmond before returning home to face Georgetown (22-14) at Disharoon Park on Wednesday (April 20). First pitch on Tuesday is scheduled for 7 p.m. on ESPN+ and 6 p.m. on Tuesday on ACCNX.

GAME COVERAGE: ESPN+ is a subscription-based service available for a monthly fee on the ESPN app and ESPN.com. Wednesday’s home match is set to air on ACCNX, available to authenticated subscribers of ACC Network. Additionally, Tuesday’s game can be heard locally in Charlottesville on WINA (98.9 FM/1070 AM) or anywhere on WINA.com. Links to live stats can be found on VirginiaSports.com. Fans can get in-game updates on the team’s official twitter page (@UVABaseball).

PROBABLE STARTING PITCHERS

Tuesday – 7 p.m.
Virginia: RHP Will Geerdes (2-0, 4.22 ERA, 21.1 IP, 9 BB, 19 SO)
VCU: LHP Campbell Ellis (1-3, 2.97 ERA, 39.1 IP, 12 BB, 35 SO)

Wednesday – 6 p.m.    
Georgetown: LHP Andrew Williams (1-2, 4.74 ERA, 24.2 IP, 13 BB, 27 SO)
Virginia: TBA

LEADING OFF

• Virginia will have two midweek contests for the second time and are slated for one more double midweek this season (4/26 at ODU & 4/27 against George Mason).
• UVA won its first 17 non-conference games of the year until falling to Old Dominion, 9-2 last Tuesday.
• The Cavaliers will finish off its longest road stretch of the season, playing the seven of the last eight away from Charlottesville. UVA will finish the regular season with 14 of its last 18 games at Disharoon Park.
• Virginia started the season with wins in 26 of the first 29 games. UVA has now dropped seven of its last eight games, a stretch that included the program’s first five-game losing streak since 2003.
• Virginia comes into the midweek ranked No. 11 in the country by D1Baseball.com. UVA has fallen out of the top-10 of the D1Baseball.com national rankings for the first time since March 14 when it debuted in the poll at No. 19.
• Tuesday will be the first of two meetings between Virginia and VCU in 2022. VCU will make a trip to Disharoon Park on May 3. UVA and Georgetown will square off for the first time since 2015.
• Wednesday’s game against Georgetown will feature three of the top-19 home run hitters in college baseball. Virginia’s Jake Gelof and the Georgetown duo of Ubaldo Lopez and Jake Hyde each have 14 home runs on the season, tied for the 11^th most in the country. The Hoyas as a team have hit 68, the sixth most in the country.
• Virginia is the No. 1 scoring offense in college baseball, averaging 9.8 runs per game. The Cavaliers have 354 runs this season, second only behind Texas Tech’s 360. The 18-run outburst against Pitt on Saturday was the 18^th time UVA scored double-digit runs in game.

AGAINST THE COMPETITION

• The Cavaliers are looking to avenge a midweek season series sweep the Rams handed to them in 2021. It was the second time the last six seasons VCU has won both meetings in the same season.
• Against the Rams, Virginia owns a 44-24 record in an all-time series that dates back to 1979. Under head coach Brian O’Connor, Virginia is 20-5 against the Rams. Three of the five VCU wins in the O’Connor era have come at the Diamond.
• Last season at the Diamond, Zach Messinger, now a member of the Yankees organization, struck out 10 batters, the most ever by a UVA reliever. The record was broken later in the season by teammate Brandon Neeck when he fanned 16 against Old Dominion in NCAA Regional on June 6.
• The all-time series against Georgetown dates back to 1894, the sixth season of Virginia baseball. The Cavaliers have a 19-17 edge against Georgetown.
• The Hoyas emerged victorious 1-0 in a two-hit shutout at Disharoon Park back in 2015, the last meeting between the two schools. It is one of three shutouts by a non-conference opponent in the regular season against Virginia since 2004 (3/2/2019 – Seton Hall – 3-0 & 2/28/12 – Liberty – 8-0).

ON THE MOUND

• For the second-straight Tuesday, righthander Will Geerdes will make the start on the mound for UVA. Making his first start in a Cavalier uniform and first since March 7, 2020 as a member of the Columbia Lions, Geerdes logged three innings and did not factor in the decision against ODU last week. He allowed two first-inning runs but went on to retire the final seven batters he faced.
• Geerdes is the team leader in games finished with nine and has 15 total appearances for the Cavaliers this season, the second-most on the staff.
• Virginia has recorded seven shutouts the season, tied with Stanford for the most in the country.
• The Cavaliers 3.23 team ERA is the eighth lowest in the country and opponents are averaging 7.03 hits per game, the sixth fewest in the NCAA.
• Virginia is 10 strikeouts away from 400 on the season and is averaging 11.0 strikeouts per nine innings, the seventh highest of any college pitching staff. Going into Tuesday, only four teams in the country have reached the 400-strikeout plateau.
• UVA has been involved in one save situation all year, the season opener against Bellarmine in which Matt Wyatt recorded the save. Avery Mabe has the club’s other save after pitching the final 3.1 against Rider on March 15.

CAVALIER NOTABLES

• Sophomore Jake Gelof went 7-for-12 (.583) with three doubles, four runs scored and 2 RBI in three games at Pitt this weekend. He comes into the midweek as the national leader in slugging percentage (.867). He ranks in the top-10 in the country in RBI (4^th – 56) and total bases (5^th – 111),
• Virginia hit 11 doubles in the first two games against Pitt and 12 total in the three-game set. In game two against the Panthers, UVA drew 15 walks, the second-most in a game this season (17 vs. Cornell on 2/25).
• The duo of Gelof and Alex Tappen are responsible 106 combined RBI and are the only teammates in the country to reach the 50-RBI plateau.
• Freshman Griff O’Ferrall had his 11-game reached base streak come to an end on Sunday, he is statistically the second toughest hitter in the ACC to strike out, with a strikeout once ever 10.4 at bats.
• Virginia has 47 stolen bases as a team, the second most in the ACC. Chris Newell leads the Cavaliers with 13 good for fourth-most in the conference. O’Ferrall is right behind him with 12, tied for the seventh most in the ACC.