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Baseball
Teel Voted ACC Player of the Year, Seven Cavaliers Honored
CHARLOTTESVILLE, – Va. – Junior catcher Kyle Teel was named the 2023 ACC Player of the Year in a vote by the league’s 14 head coaches. He is one of seven Cavaliers to be recognized on the All-ACC team, the second-most of any school in the league.
Teel is third ACC Player of the Year in program history and the first since Sean Doolittle in 2006. He was selected as a First Team All-ACC selection alongside 3B Jake Gelof, OF Ethan O’Donnell and SS Griff O’Ferrall. The trio of 1B Ethan Anderson, LHP Connelly Early and RHP Brian Edgington earned Third Team All-ACC honors.
The seven overall ACC selections and the four first team nods were both tied for the second most in program history and the most since a school-record eight All-ACC honorees, including five first teamers in 2014.
Teel led the conference in batting average (.414) and total hits (91). His 23 doubles tie for both the ACC lead and the Virginia single-season record. Teel has 11 homers with 58 RBI (seventh among ACC players), and his .480 on-base percentage ranks fifth in the conference. The Cavalier backstop has started every game this season (55) and 113 consecutive games behind the dish for UVA dating back to last season. Nationally, he is a semifinalist for the Dick Howser Trophy awarded to college baseball’s top player and on the Buster Posey Award Watch List (top catcher in the country).
Gelof earned a first team nod for the second-straight season. He is one of 11 Cavaliers in the history of the program to earn back-to-back First Team All-ACC honors and the first position player to do so since Mike Papi in 2013 and 2014. Gelof batted .340 with 20 doubles, three triples, 22 homers and 84 RBI. The Cavaliers single-season RBI record holder two times over, led the ACC in RBI and had the fourth most in the nation this year. He also matched UVA’s single season home run record with a multi-home run effort in the season finale at Georgia Tech.
In his first season with the blue and orange after transferring from Northwestern, Ethan O’Donnell batted .364 with 16 doubles, a triple, 11 homers and 46 RBI. He also co-led the team with 16 stolen bases in 18 attempts. O’Donnell ranked seventh in the league in runs scored (62) and eighth in total hits (79). He has patrolled center field for the Cavaliers for all 55 games and has a team-best, five outfield assists.
O’Ferrall established himself as one of the best hitters in the league and played all 55 games at shortstop for the Cavaliers. The second-year batted .404 with 68 runs scored, 16 doubles and 34 RBI. He also swiped 16 bags, tied for the most on the team. O’Ferrall is one of 25 semifinalists for the Brooks Wallace Award, annually bestowed on the nation’s top SS. He batted .398 in ACC games, the second highest average of anyone in the league and scored 36 runs in ACC play, the most of anyone in the ACC.
Anderson has started all 55 regular season games at first base as a sophomore and has put together 25 multiple hit games, third-most on team. He co-leads the ACC and ranks 9th in the country with 23 doubles which is also tied for a single-season school record. Anderson ranks in the top-10 in the ACC in hits (5th – 83) batting avg (8th -.372) total bases (8th – 133) and RBI (10th – 54).
Early sported a 10-1 record on the mound with the fifth-lowest ERA (3.18) in the ACC over 65 innings pitched. He fanned a staff-best 79 batters and walked only 15. The 10-win season is only the 12th in UVA history and Early was one of two ACC pitchers to reach the double-digit win mark in 2023. Early ranked in the top-10 in the ACC in strikeout-to-walk ratio (4th – 5.20), WHIP (4th – 1.11), walks allowed per nine innings (5th -2.08) and strikeouts per nine innings (7th – 10.80)
Brian Edgington went 7-3 with a 3.66 ERA over 71.1 innings pitched as a weekend starter for the Cavaliers. He fanned 77 batters while walking only 18, the seventh-best strikeout-to-walk ration in the league (4.28). Edgington a transfer from Elon, has produced five quality starts, four of them against ACC opponents. He was named ACC Pitcher of the Week on May 15 after he pitched six scoreless innings and struck out eight to help UVA complete an ACC series sweep of Louisville.