CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – No. 19 Virginia (11-0) will play the final game of nine-game homestand on Tuesday (March 7) when it hosts William & Mary (7-5) at Disharoon Park. First pitch is scheduled for 3 p.m. on ACCNX.

HOW TO FOLLOW
TV: ACCNX | RADIO: Virginia Sports App/VirginiaSports.com | LIVE STATS: VirginiaSports.com

TACO TUESDAY
Fans can enjoy $3 Tacos from the concession stands at The Dish! While supplies last!

PROBABLE PITCHING MATCHUP
W&M: RHP Owen Pierce (0-0, 1.93 ERA, 9.1 IP, 5 BB, 11 SO)
Virginia: LHP Connelly Early (2-0, 1.69 ERA, 10.2 IP, 4 BB, 15 SO)

LEADING OFF

  • Virginia is one of five unbeaten teams remaining in college baseball going into midweek action – Alabama (12-0), NC State (12-0), Troy (11-0) and Wake Forest (13-0).
  • Virginia moved up two spots in the D1Baseball Top-25 poll to No. 17. In the six major college baseball polls, the Cavaliers are ranked as high as No. 6 according to Collegiate Baseball Newspaper.
  • The Cavaliers have won their first 11 games of the season for the second-straight season and the fifth time under head coach Brian O’Connor (2008, 2009, 2013, 2022 & 2023). The Cavaliers have been 12-0, three times in his tenure (2009, 2013 and 2022).
  • Dating back to last season, Virginia has won its last 10-straight games at Disharoon Park and its last 13 at home against non-conference opponents.
  • The Cavaliers rank third in the country in team batting average (.365), sixth in ERA (2.32) and sixth in fielding percentage (.989). Virginia and Wake Forest are the only two teams in the country to rank in the top 15 in all three categories.
  • William & Mary comes into Tuesday with four, one-run losses. The Cavaliers average margin of victory this season is 9.6 runs.

AGAINST WILLIAM & MARY

  • Virginia owns an 80-31-2 all-time mark against William & Mary in a series that was first played in 1902, a 27-1 Cavalier victory.
  • The Cavaliers and Tribe have met every year since 2007 and UVA has won 16 of the last 18 meetings.
  • UVA won last year’s matchup in Charlottesville 12-0, only the fourth shutout in the series since 1971, a span of 65 games. Devin Ortiz pitched 5.2 shutout innings and went 2-for-3 with two RBI and two runs scored in the contest.
  • Last week was the five-year anniversary of UVA’s wild no-hitter against William & Mary on Feb. 28, 2018. The Cavaliers were one out away from potentially losing the game despite six of its pitchers combining for 11 hitless innings. A Tribe fielding error with two outs in the bottom 11th allowed two runs to score and UVA won the game in walk-off fashion, 4-3. To put the rare feat in context, a total of 294 no-hitters had been thrown in Major League Baseball, none of them occurred with the opposing team scoring more than two runs.

O’CONNOR 800

  • Brian O’Connor reached his 800th career win with a 12-6 win over Rhode Island on Sunday.
  • Now in his 20th season, O’Connor became the eighth baseball coach in ACC history to accumulate 800 wins at an ACC institution. His .703 winning percentage is the second highest of any active coach in DI baseball (min. 10 years).
  • All 800 of his wins have come at Virginia. He became the program’s all-time wins leader on May 28, 2016 with his 595th win, a 7-2 victory over Louisville in the ACC Tournament.

ON THE MOUND

  • Virginia will give the ball to third-year lefty Connelly Early who is scheduled to make his third-straight Tuesday start. Last week against VMI he pitched six innings of a nine-inning, three-hit shutout of the Keydets. Early struck out eight batters, one shy of his career-high.
  • Early faced the minimum over the first three innings against the Keydets and a leadoff single in the fourth snapped a streak of seven-straight innings in which he faced the minimum number of batters. He faced only 12 batters in four innings against Longwood in his first start at UVA.
  • The Cavaliers are one of six teams in the country with three shutouts on the year. LSU, McNeese, NC State, Nicholls and Tennessee each have three shutouts in 2023.
  • The Cavaliers rank eighth in the NCAA in strikeout-to-walk ration(4.67) and have the ninth-lowest WHIP (1.03) of any staff in the nation.
  • Virginia’s bullpen has inherited nine runners in 11 games this season and the only one to score was against Early in the season opener against Navy.
  • UVA’s bullpen sports a 2.40 ERA in 41.1 innings pitched. Jake Berry has made four relief appearances and has yielded only two hits in 9.2 innings pitched. He has pitched in two of UVA’s three shutouts, has a hold and one save to his credit.

MAN OF TEEL

  • In four games last week, Virginia catcher Kyle Teel was 12-for-17 (.706) with eight runs scored, three doubles and nine RBI. He has put together back-to-back four-hit games, the fourth and fifth four-hit performances of his career.
  • Teel has eight hits in his last nine at bats going into Tuesday.
  • Going into Tuesday’s action, Teel’s leads all ACC hitters in batting average (.575) and on-base percentage (.646). He ranks in the top 10 in the country in average (4th – .575), hits (5th – 23), on-base percentage (5th – .646) and hits per game (7th – 2.09).
  • In addition to his cartoon numbers at the plate, he has now started the last 69 games at catcher for UVA. He currently holds the team’s longest consecutive games played streak which now sits at 121-straight dating back 2021.

CHASING HISTORY

  • Jake Gelof is one home run away from becoming the sixth member of Virginia’s 30 career-home run club. In his final at bat against Rhode Island on Sunday he hit a solo shot over the left field wall, his team-best fourth of the season.
  • One more home run and Gelof would tie UVA Baseball Hall of Famer Brian Buchanan for the fifth most in program history. The last UVA batter to hit 30 home runs in a career was Mark Reynolds who hit 35 from 2002-04.
  • He has hit 29 home runs in 107 career games played. Tuesday will be his 99th start of his collegiate career.

PLAYER NOTES

  • Ethan O’Donnell recorded his 100th hit of his career on Saturday with a home run in the eighth inning of game one. He came into the season with 87 hits in two seasons at Northwestern. He is one of five players on the Cavalier roster with 100 collegiate hits – Kyle Teel (154), Tommy Courtney (136), Chris Baker (132), Jake Gelof (125), O’Donnell (102).
  • Ethan Anderson, Ethan O’Donnall, Casey Saucke and Kyle Teel have each reached base in all 11 games this season. Anderson currently holds the team’s longest hit streak which he extended to eight games after a 1-for-3 effort in the series finale against Rhode Island.
  • Outdone only by Teel, Ethan Anderson went 7-for-15 (.467) with two doubles, a home run and five RBI in four games last week. He matched a career-high with four hits against Rhode Island in the nightcap of Saturday’s doubleheader.
  • Gelof produced his fourth, four-RBI day of 2023 in the final game against Rhode Island on Sunday. The junior had three hits and also scored three times in the contest. He comes out of the weekend with a team-best 20 RBI, the fifth-most of any ACC hitter and tied for the 15th most in the nation. His 1.82 RBI per game rank 11th in the NCAA and 3rd in the ACC.