ACC Play Opens in Miami for No. 13 Virginia

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – No. 13 Virginia (12-1, 0-0 ACC) will open up ACC play with a three-game series at Miami (7-5, 0-0 ACC beginning Friday (March 8) at 7 p.m. The series continues Saturday (March 9) with a 6 p.m. start time and concludes on Sunday (March 10) with the series finale at 1 p.m. All three games will be broadcast on ACCNX while Friday and Sunday’s contests can be heard on WINA (98.9 FM/1070 AM)

HOW TO FOLLOW
Watch: ACCNX
Listen: WINA (98.9 FM/1070 AM/WINA.com/Virginia Sports App) – Friday & Sunday
Live Stats: VirginiaSports.com

Probable Starting Pitchers
Friday – 7 p.m.
Virginia: RHP Cullen McKay (1-0, 0.79 ERA, 11.1 IP, 5 BB, 12 SO)
Miami: RHP Gage Ziehl (0-1, 6.62 ERA, 17.2 IP, 5 BB, 19 SO)

Saturday – 6 p.m.
Virginia: LHP Evan Blanco (1-0, 2.08 ERA, 13.0 IP, 3 BB, 16 SO)
Miami: LHP Rafe Schlesinger (2-0, 2.08 ERA, 17.1 IP, 5, BB 25 SO)

Sunday – 1 p.m.
Virginia: RHP Jay Woolfolk (1-0, 5.11 ERA, 12.1 IP, 8 BB, 13 SO)
Miami: LHP Herick Hernandez (2-1, 1.59 ERA, 17.0 IP, 6 BB, 26 SO)

LEADING OFF

• Virginia comes into the weekend with 12 wins, the most of any team in the ACC. The 12 wins are tied for the sixth-most in the country and UVA is one of 10 teams nationally with 12 or more wins.
• Virginia has recorded 12 or 13 wins in its first 13 games nine times in 21 seasons under head coach Brian O’Connor. The Cavaliers went 13-0 in 2021 and 13-0 in 2022.
• O’Connor won his 850th game on Tuesday with a 6-3 win over Penn State and now sits at 851 wins after Wednesday’s victory over George Washington. He is one of eight coaches in ACC history with 850 wins as a member of the league.
• Virginia enters ACC play as the No. 4 hitting team in the country with a team batting average of .363. Its 172 hits are second to only Nicholls (181) for the most in Division I baseball.
• The Cavaliers are averaging 10.8 runs per game, the ninth most in the nation.
• UVA has faced a deficit in eight of the 13 games this season and have recorded two walk-off victories. The largest come-from-behind win came against then-No. 18 Iowa on Feb. 24 in Jacksonville, Fla. where UVA trailed by six runs.
• Virginia is 5-0 this season in games decided by one or two runs. The Cavalier had seven one or two-run victories in all of 2023.

VISITING THE HURRICANES

• With the exception of the shortened 2020 season, Virginia and Miami have squared off every year since 2003. The Hurricanes currently hold a 37-32 edge in the all-time series that began in 1985.
• Virginia swept the Hurricanes last season in Charlottesville, the first series win against Miami since 2017.
• UVA has dropped six-straight games against Miami at Alex Rodriguez Park and have not taken a road series against the Hurricanes since 2016. Virginia won four-straight road series against Miami from 2010-16.

ON THE MOUND

• Second year Cullen McKay slides into the weekend rotation and will get the start on Friday night against the Hurricanes. In two midweek starts, he’s allowed one run over 10.1 innings and fanned 11 batters. He was credited with his first career victory on Feb. 28 against VMI when he delivered UVA’s first quality start of the season (6.0 IP, 1 ER).
• McKay has five career starts in his first two collegiate seasons. He has allowed just three earned runs in 17.1 innings pitched as a starter (1.56 ERA).
• Evan Blanco will get the nod for the middle game, making his third-straight weekend start. Blanco has walked three batters in 13 innings and ranks in the top-10 in the ACC in WHIP (0.92 – 8^th) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.33 – 9th).
• Last weekend against UMass, Blanco struck out a career-high eight batters, the most by a UVA pitcher this season and the most by a Cavalier since Brian Edgington’s 11-strikeout performance against Duke in the 2023 NCAA Super Regional. Blanco retired the first 10 batters of the game including five of the first six by way of the strikeout.
• Jay Woolfolk is slated to make his second-consecutive Sunday start. The righthander put together his best outing in a Cavalier uniform last week against UMass. He pitched a career-high six innings, allowed one run and matched a career-best with five strikeouts.

D.C. POWER SURGE

• In UVA’s first true road contest on Wednesday, Virginia hit eight home runs at George Washington, the second-most in a single-game in program history. A school-record, seven different Cavaliers homered in the contest including Henry Ford who left the yard twice.
• Virginia eclipsed the 20-run mark for the second time this season (21 vs. Hofstra – 2/17) with a 26-run outburst against the Revolutionaries. It marked back-to-back seasons that UVA has scored 26 runs in a game and is the 10th time since 1950 UVA has scored 26 or more runs in a game.
• As a team UVA accumulated 24 hits, the most since racking up 25 against Longwood last year. The Cavaliers accumulated 54 total bases in the contest, the most in a game in the last 25 years.

OFFENSIVE FIREPOWER

• Virginia ranks in the top-10 in the country in six different offensive categories – hits (172 – 2nd), batting average (.363 – 4th), doubles (40 – 4th), on-base percentage (.469 – 6th), runs (140 – 7th) and scoring (10.8 rpg – 9th).
• The Cavaliers lead the ACC runs, hits and doubles.
• Sophomore Henry Godbout has seven doubles this season, tied for the most in the ACC and tied for 12th in the nation. Godbout has not struck out in 39 at bats this season, one of four players with 30 or more at bats yet to go down on strikes.

PLAYER NOTABLES

• Ethan Anderson, Henry Godbout, Anthony Stephan and Casey Saucke has successfully reached base in all 13 games this season.
• Saucke reached in his last eight games last season, all NCAA postseason contests. He has now reached in 21-straight including the 13 games this year.
• After going hitless in the opener Godbout, carries the team’s longest hitting streak at 12 games. He also leads the team with a .487 batting average, the fourth highest in the ACC.
• Harrison Didawick has homered in back-to-back games and co-leads the team with five. It’s the second time this season he’s homered in consecutive games after he began the season with three homers in his first four games.
• Henry Ford became the first Cavalier freshman since Joe McCarthy in 2013 to hit multiple homers in a game when he homered in back-to-back innings against George Washington. Since 2002, Ford, McCarthy and former big-leaguer Mark Reynolds are the only Cavalier freshmen with multi-homer games.
• Freshman Eric Becker collected five hits (four singles, one double) in UVA’s 26-12 win over George Washington on Wednesday. The five hits were the most in a game by any UVA freshman in the last 25 years. His seven at bats were the most by any UVA player since 2015 when Christian Lowry, Daniel Pinero and Kenny Towns all had eight at bats in UVA’s 18-inning game against Marist