No. 14 Virginia Run Rules Pitt in Series Opener

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – No. 14 Virginia (18-4, 4-3 ACC) peppered Pitt (11-8, 1-6 ACC) with 19 hits and blasted four home runs in an 18-2 victory on Friday (March 22) at Charles L. Cost Field. Three Cavalier pitchers held Pitt to just four hits in seven innings.

Cavalier starting pitcher Cullen McKay tossed five innings and struck out a career-best, 10 batters to earn his second victory of the season. He retired nine of the final 10 Panthers he faced and struck out the side in the first and fourth innings.

For the second-straight game, every batter in the UVA starting lineup recorded a hit. Cavalier catcher Jacob Ference hit two home runs for the second time in the last three games. He has hit one out of the park in four-straight starts and has six homers in his last four starts. Ference was a double short of the cycle and went 4-for-5 with three runs scored and three RBI.

Griff O’Ferrall put together his first four-hit game of the season and finished 4-for-5 with two doubles, three runs scored and a pair of RBI. Harrison Didawick matched a career-best with five-RBI in the contest with a 2-for-5 effort at the plate.

HOW IT HAPPENED

• Just two batters into the game, Virginia had its first lead thanks to a double down the left field line by Anthony Stephan that scored O’Ferrall all the way from first. Stephan later scored on a sacrifice fly by Henry Ford to open up a 2-0 advantage. It marked only the third time this season UVA had scored multiple runs in the first inning (3 – vs. Hofstra on 2/18; 4 vs. GW on 3/6).

• With a one-run lead after one inning, UVA erupted for five runs in the second inning, the 13th time this season scoring five or more runs in a single frame. Ference kicked off the inning with an RBI triple, his first since the 2022 season. Didawick capped the five-run outburst with a two-out, two-run double down the right field line.
• Ference led off the third inning with a solo homer to straightway centerfield, part of a three-run inning that put UVA up 10-2.

• Henry Ford put the Cavaliers past the 10-run lead threshold with a two-run, opposite field homer over in the fifth. He went 2-for-3 with two runs scored and three RBI. Ford has seven home runs in the first 22 games of his collegiate career.
• Ference left the yard for the second time, a solo shot in the sixth. The home run was his seventh of the season.

• UVA tacked on four more runs in the seventh, three on a three-run homer by Didawick. The Cavalier junior, who came into the weekend tied for fourth in the ACC in home runs, now has a team-best 10 on the year.

• Chase Hungate and Dean Kampschror each pitched an inning of scoreless relief and were both beneficiaries of a pair of double plays turned in the sixth and seventh innings by the Cavalier defense. Pitt had one hit over the final five innings.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

• Ference has six multi-home run games in his career, four at Salisbury and two at UVA.
• The triple for Ference was the fourth of his career and first at Virginia. His last triple came on June 6, 2022 in the semifinals of the D-III National Championship.
• McKay’s 10 strikeouts are the most by a UVA pitcher this year and the most since Brian Edgington struck out 11 in game three of the 2023 Super Regionals against Duke.
• The 18 runs are tied for the second most ever in the series against Pitt. It marked the second time in the last six games against Pitt that UVA has scored 18 runs (18-0 win on 4/16/22).UVA scored 19 against the Panthers in the first ever meeting between the two teams in 1940.
• Didawick extended his team-best hitting streak to 12 games. O’Ferrall and Ethan Anderson have each hit in 11-straight games.
• Friday’s meeting was the first time UVA has won by the ACC’s new 10-run rule implemented for the 2024 regular season conference games. The last run-rule victory for UVA was in last year’s ACC Tournament, a 15-1 win over Georgia Tech on May 24, 2023.

UP NEXT

The series at Pitt continues on Saturday (March 23) with the middle game of a three-game set. The Cavalier will have lefthander Evan Blanco (1-1) on the mound and he will be opposed by righthander Jack Sokol (2-1). First pitch is scheduled for 3 p.m.