Series Win Over UNC Buoys Cavaliers

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — After an ACC series in which they totaled 32 hits, scored 24 runs, committed only one error and took two of three games from No. 10 North Carolina, the 15^th-ranked Virginia Cavaliers have reason to feel good about where they stand.

“We’re at the halfway point in league play,” UVA head coach Brian O’Connor said. “Certainly, you’d like to [have won] another game or two, but we’re right in contention for everything that we want to accomplish going into the back half of the ACC season.”

Their goal of a series sweep of UNC eluded the Wahoos (25-7 overall, 9-6 ACC) on Saturday. The Tar Heels, after giving up six answered runs, scored three in the seventh inning and three more in the eighth to secure a 12-7 victory in front of a sellout crowd of 5,919 at Disharoon Park.

Virginia rallied to defeat North Carolina 14-11 on Thursday night and then clinched the series Friday night with a 7-2 win. A victory Saturday would have given the Cavaliers their second ACC series sweep of the season.

“Obviously, it stings a little,” said graduate student Angelo Tonas, who pitched 3.2 innings of scoreless relief Saturday. “You want to take all three. We had a chance today to take all three and just weren’t able to get the job done at the very end. But we took two out of three, which is great.”

The Tar Heels (26-6, 11-5) led 6-0 before the Hoos started to rally Saturday. UVA scored one run in the second, two runs in the third and three in the sixth to tie the game at 6-6. With the bases loaded in the sixth, slugger Harrison Didawick came to the plate with an opportunity to give Virginia its first lead, but Carolina reliever Matt Poston struck him out to end the inning.

With three innings to play, the Hoos no longer trailed, but they couldn’t hold down the Heels, who hit two home runs in the seventh to gain separation again.

“Unfortunately, today didn’t go our way,” UVA center fielder Bobby Whalen said. “They’re a really good baseball team and they’re gonna get theirs sometimes. And that’s just what happened.”

The Heels are 15-1 this season when they score 10 or more runs in a game. “They’ve got a really outstanding ball club and took it to us early,” O’Connor said.

Virginia fell behind 11-6 in the series opener before rallying for the game’s final eight runs. And so nobody in the home dugout lost hope Saturday when UNC jumped out to a 6-0 lead.

“I think it’s just that everyone’s even-keeled,” said Whalen, a transfer from Indiana who went 3-for-5 on Saturday. “No one panics, and we just kind of stick to what we’re doing. We do it to the best of our abilities and good things happen.”

O’Connor said: “Our guys, they hang in there no matter what happens, and that’s a great quality.”

The Cavaliers’ strengths include their formidable offense. They’re hitting .342 as a team this season, with five regulars hitting .375 or better: Jacob Ference (.412), Whalen (.408), Henry Godbout (.389), Casey Saucke (.383) and Henry Ford (.377). Virginia is averaging 10 runs per game.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” Tonas said of the run support Virginia’s pitchers have received.

Ford, a freshman, homered three times Thursday night. He has 10 home runs this season, second only to Didawick (13) at UVA. Four Cavaliers have at least 10 doubles: Ethan Anderson (13), Godbout (13), Ference (10) and Ford (10).

“They’ve done it all year,” O’Connor said of the Cavaliers’ hitters. “It’s remarkable. We’ve got a really talented offensive team that just continues to grind out at-bats and get big hits. And they’re opportunistic, so no matter what happens, you fall behind a little bit, you feel like you’re always in the ball game with this offense.”

Virginia’s pitchers haven’t been as consistent. The team’s earned-run average is 5.59, and two of the Cavaliers’ projected weekend starters (Bradley Hodges and Jack O’Connor) are out with season-ending injuries.

Sophomore Evan Blanco turned in a terrific start Friday, when he went 6.1 innings, but classmates Cullen McKay and Kevin Jaxel struggled in their starts Thursday and Saturday, respectively. McKay lasted only one inning in the series opener, and Tonas replaced Jaxel after two innings Saturday.

“Kevin had had two really, really outstanding back-to-back starts in the league for us,” O’Connor said, “and credit North Carolina, their offensive approach to him was very, very good.”

Overall, O’Connor said, he was pleased with the performance of UVA’s bullpen in the series, and “I thought we played tremendous infield defense. And so I’m encouraged by those things. And then obviously offensively, we did some really great things all weekend. Just couldn’t finish them off [Saturday] … So there’s some bright spots. We have some things to build on.”

A season ago, the Hoos made their sixth appearance in the College World Series, which they won in 2015. To make it back to Omaha, Neb., this year, Virginia probably will need more consistency from its pitching staff.

Its current weekend starters—McKay, Blanco and Jaxel—aren’t especially experienced, and “so what they need to do is grow and learn from the opportunities and get just a little bit better,” O’Connor said. “And that’s the area that, if we’re going to be a championship team, we’ve got to be a little bit better at.”

The win over North Carolina was Virginia’s eighth in the teams’ past 11 meetings. Next up for UVA is a Tuesday night date with VCU at the Dish. The Cavaliers visit ACC rival Louisville for a three-game series next weekend.

“Obviously today, the goal was to sweep [UNC] and we didn’t that done,” Whalen said, “but we’ll keep our momentum moving forward.”

MEDICAL UPDATE: Godbout, a sophomore, didn’t play in the series against UNC. He suffered a foot injury early last month in Virginia’s series against Miami in Coral Gables, Fla., “and it’s lingered on and on and hasn’t gotten any better,” O’Connor said Saturday.

“It actually got kind of worse three or four days ago, and so he wasn’t available to play this weekend. We’ll look at it early in this week to determine what the situation is.”

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