Hoos Building on Strong Foundation

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Disregard, for a moment, the 18 newcomers in the University of Virginia baseball program. If the Cavaliers were to head into 2025 with a roster made up solely of players back from last season, they’d field a team capable of challenging for a spot in the NCAA tournament.

UVA’s returning position players include Henry Ford, Harrison Didawick, Henry Godbout, Luke Hanson, Aidan Teel, Eric Becker and Jacob Ference. Pitchers back from last season include Evan Blanco, Jay Woolfolk, Matt Augustin, Bryson Moore, Ryan Osinski, Blake Barker, Kevin Jaxel and Dean Kampschror. And that doesn’t include two talented pitchers—Bradley Hodges and Jack O’Connor—who are recovering from the season-ending injuries suffered last season.

“We’re in a good spot,” said Brian O’Connor, who’s in his 22^nd year as Virginia’s head coach. “From a position-player standpoint, you feel like you return a lot of guys that have been part of a couple of College World Series runs. And then you have somebody like Aidan Teel who really didn’t get much of an opportunity last year because of circumstance.

“One, we needed him on the mound. But two, there were some veteran guys with experience in the outfield. You’re going to see Aidan Teel make a major impact this year. He is a special player, and then we’ve got injected some new players that have great ability that are going to contribute right away as well. So I’m really excited about what we have.”

The Wahoos are coming off a season in which they advanced to the College World Series for the seventh time in program history, and O’Connor noted several of that team’s standouts—Griff O’Ferrall, Casey Saucke and Ethan Anderson among them—are now playing professionally and won’t be easy to replace.

“That said, we return a lot,” said O’Connor, whose record at UVA is 885-370-2. “We’ve got a lot of work to do and a lot of things to figure out, and certainly we will have to do that in building our team and then learning what it takes to win and compete, like do every fall. But there’s some excitement out there, because the players know we’ve got some really good options.”

Virginia is one of only three programs, along with Tennessee and Stanford, to have reached the CWS in Omaha, Neb., in three of the past four seasons, “and we’re hunting our next opportunity,” O’Connor said.

Of the program’s newcomers, eight are transfers from other college programs: catcher Trey Wells (Wayne State), two-way player Chris Arroyo (Pasco-Hernando State) and pitchers Joe Colucci (Harford Community), Drew Koenen (Dartmouth), Matt Lanzendorfer (Misericordia), Alex Markus (William & Mary), August Richie (Pima Community) and Wes Arrington (Lynchburg).

The 6-foot-5, 225-pound Wells is “physical like Jacob Ference,” O’Connor said. “He’s a very good player. You need to have three or four catchers on every team, but you need to have two for sure that you feel like you can really rely on.”

Arroyo, who began his college career at the University of Florida, is a left-hander who pitches and can also play first base and outfield. “So he’s going to impact us on both sides: pitching and position player-wise,” O’Connor said.

Of the new pitchers, only Koenen and Markus came to UVA from Division I programs. But Lazendorfer helped Misericordia win the NCAA title in Division III, and the others are coming off strong seasons too.

“There’s some really good baseball being played at the non-Division I level,” O’Connor said. “With all of those guys, in our recruiting of them and evaluation of them, it’s about measuring their stuff and seeing if it lines up with what it takes [to excel] at this level. We believe that it does.”

The Hoos ended last season knowing they’d lose several players to the Major League Baseball draft, and O’Ferrall (32^nd pick overall), Anderson (61^st pick), Saucke (107^th pick) and Anthony Stephan (389^th overall) were selected. Also drafted were five of Virginia’s incoming recruits, and four of them signed pro contracts. But three recruits who the coaching staff feared might turn pro—James Nunnallee and left-handed pitchers Tomas Valincius and William Kirk—enrolled at the University as scheduled last month.

“So we actually might have lost a little bit less than we thought we were going to,” O’Connor said.

Milwaukee drafted Nunnallee in the 14^th round. A catcher in high school, he’s  likely to play in the outfield at Virginia, but Nunnallee has also played in the infield. “He’s got the kind of versatility that a Kyle Teel had,” O’Connor said.

Of the offseason developments in the program, especially significant were the decisions of three draft-eligible veterans—Ference, Didawick and Woolfolk—to return to UVA for another year.

Ference started 53 games last season, most of them at catcher, and hit .350, with 17 home runs. Didawick hit 23 homers, tying the program’s single-season record set by Jake Gelof in 2023, and Woolfolk shined in the NCAA tournament as a starting pitcher.

“That’s a huge boost,” O’Connor said. “When you lose high school players to the draft, you really don’t see the impact of that until what would have been their second year. Not saying they wouldn’t have contributed as first-years, but you see players’ biggest impacts at the elite level in college baseball their second year. But getting those three guys back was huge, and all three made their own independent decisions for different reasons.

“There’s nothing like experience. Young, new players are fun to coach because of their enthusiasm, excitement and willingness to learn, but nothing replaces experience. To have one of your starting pitchers, your home run leader and your starting catcher back, those are pretty special guys to return.”

Blanco was Virginia’s most consistent starter last season, when he posted an 8-3 record with a 3.62 earned-run average, and Woolfolk figures to join him in the weekend rotation.

The Hoos started practicing last week at Disharoon Park, and the coaching staff will use the fall to figure out which pitchers will start and which ones will come out of the bullpen.

“I think we’re going to have plenty enough options [in relief], both right-handed and left-handed,” O’Connor said. “I just have no idea who the closer would be or anything like that. I think the talent’s there. It’s just a matter of figuring out where to position them.”

Sophomore pitcher Nate Bassett, who had Tommy John surgery last year, is healthy again and will be available for scrimmages later in the fall. A 6-foot-3, 220-pound sophomore, Bassett has “electric stuff,” O’Connor said, but no college experience.

Hodges and Jack O’Connor, both expected to be among UVA’s weekend starters last season, continue to rehab and won’t pitch this fall. It’s uncertain when they’ll be cleared for competition, said Brian O’Connor (no relation), but “if we get one of them back or two of them back, that’ll even be a bigger shot in the arm for us.”

The Cavaliers are still adjusting to life without O’Ferrall, who won the Brooks Wallace Award as the nation’s top shortstop last season. But Becker, Godbout and Hanson were all shortstops in high school, as was freshman Jackson Sirois, and Brian O’Connor is confident one of them will prove to be a capable successor to O’Ferrall at that position.

“It’s going to be open competition all fall to kind of see who emerges,” O’Connor said, “and then we’ll move from there.”

Ford, a Freshman All-American last season, when he hit 17 homers and had a team-high 69 RBIs, has a new home on the field. He’s moved from first base to right field, where “I think he’ll be an elite-level outfielder,” O’Connor said.

After bulking up to about 230 pounds over the summer, the 6-foot-5 Ford “physically looks like the guys that play the game at the highest, highest level,” O’Connor said. “Part of the move for him to go to the outfield is that I think that’s what’s best for our team, first. But also I believe this guy’s going to play the game for a long time, and he looks like what corner outfielders look like at the highest level.”

Among the candidates to replace Ford at first base is Antonio Perrotta, a 6-foot-4, 235-pound sophomore. Perrotta appeared in 13 games last season was 5-for-11 (.455) at the plate, with one homer.

The freshman class includes Max Prozny, a reserve kicker on the UVA football team this fall. The 5-foot-11, 165-pound Prozny is listed on the baseball roster at a utility player, and it’s unclear what his role will be in the spring.

“When we get him from football, we’ll see,” O’Connor said. “He’s that undersized, scrappy, hard-nosed guy that can run. So we’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out. But he’ll have an opportunity once he joins us.”

The Cavaliers went 5-0 in NCAA tournament games at the Dish last season to advance to Omaha for the second straight year. Virginia finished 46-17 after dropping both of its games in the College World Series.

“Certainly, it’s very disappointing when you go to Omaha and you don’t win a game,” said O’Connor, who guided UVA to the NCAA title in 2015. “That said, you’ve got to keep that in check. You’re never satisfied as a player or coach just getting to Omaha. That’s never been the goal for us. It’s to get the opportunity to figure out how to win it all when you get there. But there’s two teams that go two-and-out every year out of the eight. A lot of times it’s a pitch here or a hit there, and either you get them or the other team gets them. As a competitor you always want to win, but it’s the best of the best when you get there, and we’ve been there a lot—the second-most of anybody in the last 15 years—and so that’s what I choose to dwell on. I believe if you continue to give your program an opportunity to be on that stage, then it comes back around to you.”

UVA will play two exhibition games—Oct. 20 vs. Maryland and Oct. 27 vs. UNCW, both at noon—at Disharoon Park this fall. Also on the schedule are 11 Orange and Blue World Series games at the Dish.

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