No. 15 Virginia Hosts No. 10 North Carolina in Three-Game ACC Series

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – No. 15 Virginia (23-6, 7-5 ACC) will host its second top-10 opponent of the season when No. 10 North Carolina comes to Disharoon Park for a three-game ACC series. The opener is scheduled for Thursday (April 4) at 7 p.m. on ACC Network.

HOW TO FOLLOW
Watch: ACC Network (Thurs.) | ACCNX (Fri. & Sat.)
Listen: WINA (98.9 FM/1070 AM/WINA.com/Virginia Sports App) – Thurs. & Fri. only
Live Stats: VirginiaSports.com

Probable Starting Pitchers
Thursday – 7 p.m.
North Carolina: LHP Folger Boaz (3-1, 4.67 ERA, 34.2 IP, 16 BB, 32 SO)
Virginia: RHP Cullen McKay (2-1, 5.27 ERA, 27.1 IP, 20 BB, 37 SO)

Friday – 6 p.m.
North Carolina: RHP Jason DeCaro (1-0, 3.63 ERA, 24.2 IP, 17 BB, 31 SO)
Virginia: LHP Evan Blanco (2-1, 4.05 ERA, 33.1 IP, 10 BB, 33 SO)

Saturday – 1 p.m.
North Carolina: LHP Shea Sprague (1-1, 4.55 ERA, 27.2 IP, 5 BB, 23 SO)
Virginia: RHP Kevin Jaxel (4-0, 7.40 ERA, 20.2 IP, 14 BB, 17 SO) 

LEADING OFF

• Tenth-ranked North Carolina will be Virginia’s fourth nationally ranked opponent of the season. It marks the first time since 2015 (No. 9 Miami; No. 7/5 Louisville) that UVA has hosted two top-10 teams at Disharoon Park in the regular season.
• It marks the second-straight year that both North Carolina and Virginia are ranked inside the top-20 when playing one another. Last season UVA came in at No. 17 and North Carolina was No. 14 according to D1Baseball.
• North Carolina (25 wins) and Virginia (23 wins) are two of 13 schools in the country with 23 or more wins. A total of four ACC teams have reached the 23-win mark – Clemson (25 wins), Florida State (24 wins) UNC and Virginia.
• Virginia is 14-2 at home this season and has won 51 of its last 58 games at Disharoon Park.
• The Virginia offense leads the country in hits (369) and doubles (87) while sporting the nation’s second-best team batting average (.345).
• This weekend’s matchup features the top two scoring offenses in the ACC. Virginia leads all ACC schools with an average of 10.1 runs per game while North Carolina is plates 9.1 runs per game. UVA sophomore Harrison Didawick leads the league in runs scored (41) and UNC’s Vance Honeycutt has the second most in the ACC.

AGAINST NORTH CAROLINA

• North Carolina is the only opponent that Virginia has played 300 games against. The all-time series dates back to 1891 with the Tar Heels holding a 190-118-4 advantage.
• Head coach Brian O’Connor owns a 32-32 mark against North Carolina since arriving at UVA in 2004.
• Virginia has won six of the last eight games against the Tar Heels that includes a three-game series sweep in 2022 at Disharoon Park. The series was highlighted by a seesaw, 10-inning battle in the series-clinching game on Saturday. Devin Ortiz hit a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the tenth to punctuate a UVA victory.
• Last season Virginia took two out of three games to win the series against North Carolina in Chapel Hill for the first time since 2015. The Tar Heels handed UVA its first loss of the 2023 season, taking the second game of doubleheader 6-0. Virginia was the last undefeated team in the country at 14-0 until that point.

ON THE MOUND

• Cullen McKay, Evan Blanco and Kevin Jaxel will make up the UVA rotation for the third-straight weekend. Blanco is the only Cavalier with seven starts and has been in the rotation since opening weekend.
• McKay is the only Cavalier this season to deliver a double-digit strikeout performance after he fanned 10 batters in a road start at Pitt on March 22. McKay is coming off a seven-strikeout effort last Thursday at Duke. The righthander walked a season-high five batters and hit two. Four of his six earned runs reached on a hit or a HBP.
• Blanco has pitched five or more innings in three of his four ACC starts this season. He was one out shy of becoming the pitcher of record in UVA’s 7-3 win at Duke last weekend. He has not allowed more than three runs in any of his seven starts this season.
• Jaxel made his first ever start in a Cavalier uniform two weeks ago at Pitt and delivered five innings of one-run baseball to earn his team-leading fourth win of the season. He made one mistake at Duke last weekend, a two-run, game-tying homer Logan Bravo in the third inning, the Blue Devils first hit of the game. He took a no-decision and left the game with the score tied at two.
• Since coming in emergency relief in the series finale against Wake, Jaxel has allowed three runs 11.1 innings pitched (2.38 ERA).

COMEBACK CAVS

• UVA has faced a deficit in 19 of the 29 games this season and recorded 14 come-from-behind victories.
• The Cavaliers have recorded three walk-off victories and three wins when erasing a deficit of five or more runs.
• Of the Cavaliers 14 come-from-behind victories, the largest came against then-No. 18 Iowa on Feb. 24 in Jacksonville, Fla. where UVA trailed by six runs. They trailed by five runs in the opener against Wake Forest and five runs after the seventh inning stretch in the finale against the Demon Deacons.
• Virginia is 6-1 this season in games decided by one or two runs and have gone to extra innings on three different occasions. The Cavalier had seven one or two-run victories in all of 2023.
• Remarkably, UVA is 10-3 when opponents score first and 9-3 when opponents score in the first inning. Virginia has scored 39 runs in the sixth inning this season, its most potent frame.
• Prior to UVA’s 5-4, 10-inning walk-off win against Wichita State on Feb. 23, the Cavaliers had lost 39-straight games when trailing after seven.

PLAYER NOTABLES

• Freshman Henry Ford has reached base safely in 22-straight games and extended the streak with his 14th multi-hit effort of the season, tied for the most on the team. He has collected 43 hits in his first 29 games, the tied with Miami’s Daniel Cuvet for the most by any freshman in the country. Ford was recognized as a midseason Freshman All-American by Perfect Game on Wednesday.
• Griff O’Ferrall, a unanimous preseason All-American and D1Baseball.com’s No. 2 shortstop entering the season took home Perfect Game Third Team Midseason All-America honors this week. O’Ferrall owns a .345 career batting average which currently is the ninth highest in the history of the program. Already UVA’s single season record holder in runs scored, O’Ferrall needs one more run to enter UVA’s top-10 all-time. Two runs would tie him for ninth with current UVA student-assistant coach and former big leaguer John Hicks.
• Jacob Ference enters the season with a hit in his last 14 games, the longest active streak on the team. The graduate student has reached base in all 18 of his starts (15 at C, 4 as DH). Over the last 10 games, Ference is batting .421 (16-for-38) with a double, triple and five home runs.
• Harrison Didawick is the only player in the ACC with 40 runs scored entering Thursday. He leads the ACC in run scored with 42 runs scored, the 10th most in the country. Didawick also ranks in the top-5 in the league in home runs (4th – 12) RBI (5th – 40) and total bases (5th – 81).
• Casey Saucke has a hit in all but three games this season and is currently sporting a 10-game hit streak. He went 3-for-5 in the series finale against then No. 11 Duke, his sixth multi-hit game in the last nine games. Saucke ranks in the top-11 in the ACC ranks: in hits (4th – 47), runs (6th – 36) and RBI (11th – 32).
• Ethan Anderson reached base in the first 26 games of the season and the streak came to an end on Friday at Duke. He was kept off base for the final two games of the series, the first time he did not reach base in back-to-back starts in his career. Anderson needs one double to become the eighth Cavalier ever with 50 career doubles and the first since Kenny Towns in 2015.
• Bobby Whalen enters the series ranked seventh in the ACC in batting average. He’s reached in all but three of his starts this season.
• Henry Godbout moved his hit streak to 11 games with an eighth inning single to put UVA 4-0 against ODU on Tuesday. He has accumulated 13 doubles this season, the second most in the ACC and the 10th most in the country.