UVA Softball No Longer Flying Under Radar

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Life changes for a softball program that makes the NCAA tournament. The Virginia Cavaliers have learned that in the first month of the new season.

After years of slow, steady progress, UVA broke through in 2024, advancing to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2010 and only the second time in program history. The Wahoos won two games at the NCAA regional in Knoxville, Tenn., and new challenges are arising in their ninth season under head coach Joanna Hardin.

“Last year we were learning how to win and get to postseason, and I think there is something different about this year,” Hardin said Monday at Palmer Parker. “We have to learn how to play with a target on our back. We are not the surprise team anymore. I hear less and less from opposing coaches [comments] like, ‘Wow, you guys are good.’ We know we are good. We are a good softball team, and we’re the game circled [by opponents].”

The Hoos played their first 10 games away from Charlottesville, at high-profile tournaments in Columbia, S.C., and Clearwater, Fla. They returned home last week to host the Mizuno Classic, whose schedule had to be adjusted because of weather conditions.

Virginia posted a 5-0 record at Palmer Park, defeating Penn and Delaware two times each and Longwood once. The Cavaliers (10-5) grew more dominant as the tournament went on—they recorded run-rule victories over Delaware on Sunday and Longwood on Monday—after encountering significant resistance in their first three games.

That was to be expected, Hardin said. A win over UVA, which is ranked No. 25 in the latest ESPN.com/USA poll, now represents a noteworthy accomplishment for opponents.

“You’re going to get Delaware’s best game, you’re going to get Penn’s best game, you’re going to get Longwood’s best game,” Hardin said.

With a talented nucleus of returning players from last season, including Eden Bigham, Jade Hylton, Bella Cabral, Macee Eaton, M.C. Eaton and Sarah Coon, the Cavaliers came into 2025 with lofty goals. They want to advance to an NCAA super regional, if not further, and when Hardin and her assists broke down the résumés of teams that have reached the tournament’s round of 16 in recent years, she found that they had excellent strength-of-schedule ratings.

And Hardin signed up her team for the Gamecock Invitational in South Carolina and the Shriners Children’s Invitational in Florida. In Columbia, UVA dropped two one-run games to host South Carolina, each time on a walk-off, but defeated East Carolina, Toledo and Saint Francis.

In Clearwater the Hoos upset Kentucky and UCLA; lost one-run games to Auburn and Texas A&M, both in extra innings; and fell 6-2 to San Diego State.

In the latest ESPN.com/USA poll, UCLA is No. 4, Texas A&M is No. 5, Auburn is No. 19, South Carolina is No. 21, and San Diego State is No. 23.

“Any time you get to go south to open up the first two weeks in February, that’s always a blessing, because this weather in Virginia ain’t quite ready for us yet,” Hylton said Monday, smiling. “But that was a good way to start. Lots of good competition, tough games, a lot of tough walk-offs, but it helped us figure out who we are and how we can kind of close out our opponents.”

The experience her team gained in those tournaments, especially the Shriners Children’s Invitation, was invaluable, Hardin said. “We faced great pitching, but I also think Clearwater was really, really competitive for us, and we competed hard, played hard, played against great teams.”

The Hoos faced a wide range of pitching styles in Florida, “and I thought we executed pretty well against it all,” Hardin said. “And then we saw some of the top offenses in the country from our pitching side. It’s definitely given us a lot of feedback on what we need to work on, but it’s also prepared us.”

Not only did Virginia take on high-caliber teams, “it was just the intensity of that tournament,” Hardin said. “You’re walking around there with national championship softball programs and national championship coaches and ESPN is all over the place and there’s interviews and there’s fans and it’s so loud and it feels like a championship environment. And so your team can either rise to that or get kind of overcome by that. And I thought we rose to that really, really well.”

An unforgettable at-bat by junior M.C. Eaton capped the Cavaliers’ stay in Clearwater. Eaton’s two-run home run in the bottom of the seventh inning lifted UVA to a stunning 7-6 win over UCLA, a program that has won 13 NCAA championships.

“We were kind of riding a high after that,” Hylton said. “Obviously, it had been a long weekend. We knew that we had lost a couple games that should have turned out like the UCLA game, but that was a big one. We all kind of had this feeling that we knew we could do it, because we had obviously been in the same situation with other teams several days consecutively before. So we knew we had it in us. Just being able to close out that one, though, kind of showed us that we are tough and we can compete with teams like that.”

The Cavaliers returned home mentally and physically exhausted. But fatigue comes into play in the postseason, too, Hardin said, and so she challenged her team to push through what the Hoos call “interference,” factors like the weather, the opponent and the umpires.

“All those variables are just interference,” she said. “We just have to go play quality softball. When you treat everybody the same, we have a much better chance of accomplishing our goals and what we’ve set for ourselves.”

For the season, Virginia has hit 13 home runs. Nine of them came in the Mizuno Classic. Cabral, a sophomore, hit two homers in UVA’s win over Delaware on Sunday, the second of which made it 11-2 and ended the game in the bottom of the sixth.

The Cavaliers crushed four homers Monday afternoon in their 10-0 victory over Longwood. Hylton had two of them, both two-run shots.

“Obviously, it’s nice when we come out here and hit however many long balls that we did this weekend,” Hylton said, “but really we’re just working on being a selfless team when we’re on offense. And so if we have to lay down a bunt to advance runners, we’re gonna do that. So that’s just kind of our philosophy as an offense.”

Asked about UVA’s power surge, Hardin smiled. “It’s ironic,” she said, “because when we swing for the fence, we don’t hit them. And when we stay really simple and focused on the plate …. and we attack our zone with a really compact swing, the home runs and the extra-base hits kind of take care of themselves.”

Virginia right-hander Julia Cuozzo, who scattered three hits in her four innings, picked up the victory against Longwood. Cuozzo, a sophomore, missed most of last season with an injury for which she received a medical redshirt.

Cuozzo, who pitched in 11 games last season, said she learned that softball “could be taken away in a second, so enjoy every moment, every emotion. It was a long process. All my coaches, my trainer and my teammates really helped me through it and I couldn’t have done it without them.”

Her appearance Monday was Cuozzo’s second of the season, and she lowered her earned-run average to 1.00.

“We’re really glad to have Julia back,” Hylton said. “Any time you can get a pitcher out there that throws a drop ball that falls off the table, it’s going to be a tough day for the other team. So we’re really excited to have her back on our staff.”

Hardin said Cuozzo “complements everybody. She can go in front of or behind anybody out of our bullpen. She needs volume, she needs reps, she needs to get out there, but having her back [is great]. She’s just been itching to get out there and working so hard and so diligently. It expands our innings. I don’t foresee us going into conference play with anybody overly worked, and that’s huge, because those series are tough.”

The run support she received Monday made her job in the circle easier, Cuozzo said. “I can take a deep breath, stand back, and know that my team has my back no matter what, and it’s fun to watch, too, all the home runs.”

The Cavaliers are nearing the midpoint of an 11-game homestand. They’re hosting the Party at Palmer Invitational this weekend and will play Cornell and Seton Hall on Friday, Seton Hall and Hofstra on Saturday, and Hofstra on Sunday.

Then comes another game against Longwood, next Tuesday at Palmer Park. The Hoos open ACC play with a three-game series against No. 14 Virginia Tech, March 7-9 in Blacksburg.

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