Virginia Set to Open Play at ACC Baseball Championship on Wednesday

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The Virginia baseball team (32-17, 16-11 ACC) will open the 2025 ACC Baseball Championship on Wednesday (May 21) with a second-round game against the winner of the first-round contest between Boston College and Notre Dame at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.

HOW TO FOLLOW
Watch: ACC Network
Listen: WINA (98.9/1070 AM/WINA)
Live Stats: VirginiaSports.com

Probable Starting Pitchers:
Wednesday – 9 p.m.
Virginia: RHP Jay Woolfolk (4-2, 4.26 ERA, 63.1 IP, 23 BB, 73 SO)
Boston College/Notre Dame: TBA

LEADING OFF

• Six members of the Virginia baseball team were recognized as part of the Atlantic Coast Baseball postseason accolades. The Cavalier duo of Henry Godbout and Henry Ford landed second-team honors while Jacob Ference, Eric Becker and Aidan Teel appeared on the third team, with Tomas Valincius garnering Freshman All-ACC honors.
• UVA enters the ACC Baseball Championship having homered in 20 straight games dating back to April 6 at NC State. The 20-game streak is the longest by the Hoos in the Brian O’Connor era.
• March 29’s win over Stanford was coach Brian O’Connor’s 900th career victory. With the win, O’Connor became the 15th active head coach in Division I with 900 career wins.
• Entering the ACC Championship, 17 of UVA’s 32 wins on the season are of the comeback variety, including May 10th’s instant classic walk-off win against Miami.
• UVA is 22-6 on the season when junior Aidan Teel is batting leadoff for the Cavaliers.

 THE VIRGINIA RESUME

• UVA finished sixth in the ACC, which was only a game and a half out of first place.
• Virginia won 12 of its final 14 games, including its final three ACC series (including at Georgia Tech, a home sweep of Miami and at Virginia Tech).
• Since the start of the Stanford series (March 27), UVA has won 20 of its 26 games.
• The Cavaliers won six of nine ACC series played, including the last four series.
• UVA was one of three ACC teams that did not lose back-to-back league series all season. The other two are Florida State (37-13, 17-10) and NC State (33-18, 17-11).
• Virginia was one of two ACC teams to take a road series at regular-season champions Georgia Tech. The other was Clemson (41-15, 18-12).

 RANKING THE HOOS

• Entering the ACC Championship, UVA’s arms ranked fourth in the ACC with an ERA of 4.63. Along with ERA, Virginia pitchers are averaging 9.6 strikeouts-per-game to place 31st in the country.  UVA has turned 41 double plays this year, which ranks fifth in the ACC.  As a team, UVA is batting .309, good enough for 25th nationally and third in the league.
• The power surge since the start of the Stanford series has raised the UVA scoring average to 8.0, which ranks 49th nationally and fifth in the ACC.

 ON THE MOUND

• Jay Woolfolk will get the ball on Wednesday for UVA. The righthander leads all Cavalier pitchers with 67 strikeouts on the season. Woolfolk is averaging 10.37 strikeouts per nine innings to place sixth in the league.
• During the 2024 ACC Tournament and postseason, Woolfolk went 2-1 with a 3.66 ERA over four appearances and three games started. During the run to Omaha, Woolfolk fanned 20 batters in 19.2 innings pitched. 

 PLAYER NOTABLES

• Eric Becker ranks among the league’s best when it comes to batting. The sophomore ranks second in the league with 20 doubles, sixth with 1.43 hits per game, and eighth with a .357 batting average.
• Henry Ford ranks 1oth in ACC with a batting average of .356. The sophomore is also averaging 1.47 hits per game to rank fourth in the league and 72nd nationally.
• Aidan Teel’s 20 doubles rank the junior with the third-most two-baggers in the league.
• Elsewhere in the lineup, Henry Godbout and James Nunnallee are proving to be two of the hardest outs in the conference. Godbout has a strikeout rate of 10.9 to rank third in the ACC, while Nunnalle enters the weekend with a K rate of 10.6 to place him fourth in the league.

 CLAIMED THE COMMONWEALTH

• To close out the regular season, Virginia took two of three from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
• In the series opener, the Cavaliers rode eight innings of two-run ball from Jay Woolfolk and a five-run eighth highlighted by a Chris Arroyo home run.
• After dropping the middle game, Virginia bounced back on the final day of the regular season with a 3-1 victory over the Hokies. Tomas Valincius tossed a season-long 6.2 innings of one-run ball. All three Cavalier runs came via home runs off the bats of Chris Arroyo and Jacob Ference.
• With the win, Virginia improved to 113-93 against Virginia Tech and had won back-to-back season series against the Hokies for the first time since the 2019 and 2021 editions of the Commonwealth Clash.