Hoos Heating Up As Regular Season Winds Down

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — When he met with his team last month after its return from Tallahassee, Fla., University of Virginia head baseball coach Brian O’Connor did not sugarcoat the situation. With the regular season winding down, time was running out for a team with NCAA tournament aspirations.

O’Connor told his players that “our approach needs to be that we can’t give any games away. We might not win every game, but we need to treat it like this is the end of the season. It’s got to be that kind of urgency. We’ve put ourselves in that position.”

The Cavaliers had flown to Tallahassee for a three-game ACC series against then-No. 7 Florida State. But the series was canceled in the wake of a mass shooting on the FSU campus, and the Wahoos returned to Charlottesville on April 18.

Since then, the Hoos (26-16 overall) have gone 6-1, taking two of three games from ACC foe Georgia Tech in Atlanta and defeating Georgetown, JMU, VCU and Navy at Disharoon Park.

“We’re playing some of our best baseball, and what an important time to be able to do that,” O’Connor said Wednesday evening after Virginia’s 5-1 win over Navy.

The Hoos have advanced to the College World Series seven times under O’Connor, and they entered 2025, as they do every year, with the goal of returning to Omaha, Neb.

Eight regular-season games remain for Virginia, a stretch that starts next Wednesday, when Towson visits the Dish. The Cavaliers’ RPI remains unimpressive—they fell two spots, to No. 75, after beating Navy—but series wins over ACC foes Miami and Virginia Tech could change that.

The Hoos, who are 11-10 in conference play, host the Hurricanes, May 9-11. UVA closes the regular season against Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, May 15-17. The ACC tournament starts May 20 in Durham, N.C.

“They know what’s at stake,” O’Connor said of his players. “They know that they’ve got to go out and play great baseball the rest of the season to have an opportunity to play in June. So that’s been our message to them, and it’s been consistent.”

A phrase heard often around Disharoon Park these days is “playoff baseball.” On a recent episode of 1186: The Podcast, associate head coach Kevin McMullan explained how that concept was presented to the players.

“It’s the reality of the position we put ourselves in, and now we just gotta have the right mindset. Every game matters,” McMullan said. “Plug in like it’s playoff baseball.”

Against Navy (23-23), senior Jacob Ference put Virginia ahead to stay with a second-inning home run off the scoreboard in right-center field. Ference said the Cavaliers are approaching every game as if it’s part of an NCAA regional.

“We go to Georgia Tech and we’re like, ‘All right, it’s the Georgia Tech regional,’ ” Ference said. “That’s how we’re kind of treating every game from here on out. We come here for our two [midweek games against VCU and Navy] and we’re playing like it’s our last. I think it took a little bit to get there, but I think it’s a great mindset to have, and we’re all playing really great baseball.”

McMullan, on the podcast, told hosts Damon Dillman and Andrew Ramspacher that the coaching staff has noticed a difference in the players recently.

“The energy, the focus, I think it was there before,” McMullen said. “I think it’s just a little bit crisper now. That’s the reality of the position we put ourselves in, and now we just gotta keep our foot on the gas.”

The season hasn’t unfolded as expected for the Cavaliers, but they “kind of just stuck to it, stuck to the plan, and just trusted in ourselves day after day,” Ference said. “We trusted that we were going to bounce back eventually. As of recently, we’ve been playing better baseball, and the confidence is going to roll and snowball a little bit and we’re hoping to take it into next week.”

Final exams start Thursday at the University and run through May 9. The Cavaliers will practice several times during the break, but “the priority has to be for them to focus on their exams,” O’Connor said. “They’re students first before they’re athletes, and they all came to the University of Virginia for a reason, and that’s to get a tremendous education.”

The Hoos head into the break hitting .307. Of the players who have started at least 28 games, six are hitting .300 or better: Henry Ford (.368), Eric Becker (.361), Ference (.323), Aidan Teel (.318), Chris Arroyo (.314) and Henry Godbout (.306).

Arroyo, who’s in his first season as a Cavalier, also pitches, and the junior left-hander impressed against Navy. It was his sixth appearance of the season but only his second start. Arroyo went a career-long 4.2 innings, striking out three, walking two and giving up two hits.

“There’s a difference in him as a starter,” O’Connor said. “How we pitched today is how he pitched in the fall, and we have a lot of confidence in him. And I thought he did a fantastic job today. We drove up his pitch count more. It looked like there in the fifth inning, he was starting to run out of gas a little bit. His ball got up a little bit at times, and it was time to take him out of the game, but I’m just really proud of him and the job that he’s doing for our team.”

Arroyo wasted little time between pitches, and that’s generally his approach on the mound.

“I like to just go right at it,” he said, “and I think it gives [batters] less time to think.”

Arroyo’s approach “doesn’t put the defense to sleep,” O’Connor said. “He gets on the mound and throws and keeps coming at you. So as a defender, that’s what I would love to play behind. Versus running into deep counts and falling behind hitters, he goes after you and attacks you and executes.”

Ference said he’d rather catch a pitcher who works quickly than “a guy who takes his time. Moving quick, I think, it just keeps the like the pace of the game going … It’s fun to be a part of. It keeps the infielders engaged, it keeps the outfielders engaged, and I think it keeps the fans engaged too.”

The Cavaliers allowed only three hits Wednesday. Wes Arrington relieved Arroyo in the fifth, and Matthew Buchanan took over with two outs in the sixth. Drew Koenen pitched the final 2.1 innings for the Cavaliers.

“Everybody that pitched out of the bullpen did a really nice job,” O’Connor said.

Ford and Chone James had two hits apiece for Virginia in a game that lasted only two hours and 18 minutes. The night before, the Cavaliers had allowed six runs in the final three innings before securing a 9-8 win over VCU. O’Connor said he was proud that the Hoos “hung in there and did enough” against the Rams, but he wanted to see a cleaner performance against Navy, and his team responded.

“And so I told our players that they should be as excited as ever about what this team is doing right now,” O’Connor said.

At this point of the season, a non-conference loss might be devastating for the Cavaliers. O’Connor doesn’t want his players putting undue pressure on themselves, but they understand what’s at stake every time they take the field.

“They know that we can’t give any of these away,” he said. “We have eight games left on the schedule and we have to capitalize on every opportunity we have.”

With postseason approaching, mock NCAA tournament brackets abound in college baseball circles, but Arroyo, for one, doesn’t go looking to see if the Cavaliers are included.

“I don’t really care about that stuff,” he said. “It’s just day by day. I feel like if we do our job, we’ll get to where we need to be and if we don’t, we don’t.”

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