Hoos Hit Homestretch With Little Room for Error

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — To the players on the University of Virginia baseball team, this might be an unfamiliar situation, but it’s nothing new for the program that Brian O’Connor has led for more than two decades.

Several times during his tenure the Cavaliers have needed a strong finish to the regular season to make the NCAA tournament, and that’s the case again this spring.

“Our teams in the past, when their backs have been against the wall, they’ve stepped up the majority of the time,” O’Connor said, “and I believe that this team will do that as well.”

The Wahoos (21-15) kicked off a stretch of seven games in nine days with a one-sided win Tuesday night at Disharoon Park. En route to a 13-1 run-rule victory over Georgetown, Virginia scored 10 runs in the third inning.

“Obviously, it was a very challenging situation, not having played baseball for a week,” O’Connor said. “This is kind of like [coming out of] final exams. You don’t know how your team’s going to respond, but certainly our guys came out ready to play.”

The game was the Hoos’ first since April 15, when they lost to Liberty at Disharoon Park. They flew to Tallahassee, Fla., the next day, expecting to play three games against then-No. 7 Florida State, but that series was canceled in the wake of the mass shooting on the FSU campus Thursday.

“First off, prayers to FSU, their team,” UVA center-fielder Aidan Teel said. “I know they were excited to play us. We were really excited to play them. It would have been a great series. But honestly, it’s bigger than baseball. All of UVA and our fans and our players, all of our prayers go out to [the Seminoles]. They’re in thoughts right now, and we hope everyone who’s dealt with it is doing OK.”

Neither Virginia nor Florida State has room in its schedule to make up the series, O’Connor said. “At this point, it is what it is, and we just do everything we can with what’s in front of us.”

The Cavaliers, 9-9 in conference play, have three ACC series left, two of them on the road. UVA meets No. 24 Georgia Tech in Atlanta this weekend and closes the regular season against Virginia Tech in Blacksburg next month. The Hoos’ final home series is against Miami, May 9-11.

Virginia hosts JMU (13-27) at 6 p.m. Wednesday and enters that game with an RPI of 93. The season has not unfolded as expected for the Cavaliers, who were widely considered a top-five team in the preseason, but O’Connor’s focus is on the present.

“You can’t do anything about what’s happened in the past,” he said. “All we can do is look forward and take care of the opportunities we have, and you either do it or you don’t. And I don’t sugarcoat it with [UVA’s players]. They know the situation we’re in, and they’re going to have to go out and earn it to be playing in June.”

Not only must the Cavaliers perform well in their remaining ACC series, they cannot afford to stumble in midweek contests. They have five non-conference games left, all at the Dish. Against the Hoyas (13-27), starter Evan Blanco settled down after giving up a first-inning run, and Virginia’s offense did its part, totaling 11 hits.

“It was great getting back out there,” said junior second baseman Henry Godbout, who hit a two-run home run in the third.

Three players had two hits apiece for the Hoos: Teel, shortstop Eric Becker and right-fielder Henry Ford.

“This is the time of the year that we have to be at our best,” O’Connor said, “and we’ve challenged our guys, telling them that we can’t give anything away and we need to pour everything into every pitch, and they certainly did tonight.”

Blanco had been part of Virginia’s weekend rotation for much of the season, but he’d given up 24 hits in 11 innings in his previous three starts. Against Georgetown, he struck out four, scattered four hits and walked only one in his four innings.

“That was a real bright spot for us,” O’Connor said. “We’re going to need him to pitch great baseball down the stretch.”.

In the second inning, Teel hit a towering home run that landed on the concourse beyond the home bullpen in right field. As impressive as that blast was, even more memorable was Teel’s defensive gem in the top of the third.

“That was a championship play,” O’Connor said

After turning and sprinting in pursuit of a well-struck ball, Teel laid out and made a diving catch on the warning track to rob Jeremy Sheffield of an extra-base hit.

“I don’t know if it was the best catch I’ve ever seen, but it was up there,” Godbout said. “That was pretty nuts.”

Teel said: “I’m just glad I could do it for Evan Blanco on the mound there, because he’s been [key] for us. He goes out there and battles every day, and he deserves guys to pick him up like that.”

The team returned home from Tallahassee on Friday. Back in Charlottesville, the Hoos held intrasquad scrimmages on Friday and Saturday before taking Easter Sunday off as planned.

Under O’Connor, the Cavaliers have advanced to the College World Series seven times. They were crowned NCAA champions in 2015, and they entered this season looking to make a third straight trip to Omaha, Neb. That dream hasn’t been extinguished, but Virginia’s margin for error is now perilously thin.

O’Connor said his players know “we’ve got to put ourselves in a position to win every game that’s in front of them. There’s no magic formula for it. You don’t know exactly what you have to do. We know that we have to win a lot of games, and we’ve put ourselves in that situation. We’ve got to take care of the game in front of us, and that’s what we’ll focus on [Wednesday] against JMU.”

The key for the Cavaliers, Godbout said, is “playing every game like it’s your last. You’ve got to win every game. So that’s kind of our mindset and we’re going to keep doing that.”

This is now “playoff baseball,” Teel said. “Our goal is to win every time and come out and dominate, but that didn’t happen [early in the season]. So right now it’s really crucial that we come out [and win]. It’s like playing in a regional, playing in a super regional. You win, you advance. So that’s our motto right now.”

To receive Jeff White’s articles by email, click the appropriate box in this link to subscribe.