Late-inning heroics are becoming somewhat commonplace for the Hoos in the twilight of the 2015 season.
In game one of the Charlottesville Super Regional on Friday, down 3-0, Virginia scored five runs in the top of the eighth against Maryland’s All-America ace Mike Shawaryn and stud closer Kevin Mooney. Those runs gave the Hoos their first lead of the game and ultimately the final 5-3 margin to claim game one of the best two-out-of-three series for the right to go to the College World Series.
Mooney picked up his first loss of the season and his first blown save as the closer after allowing three earned runs in the top of the eighth inning. Terp coach John Szefc admitted that watching Shawaryn, who owns a 13-2 record this season, and Mooney, Maryland all-time saves leader (33), get knocked around by the Wahoo offense was a rare occurrence.
“Obviously it’s a pretty tough way for us to lose,” Szefc lamented. “We really have not lost many games in that fashion in a long time, taking a lead into the eighth like that. Kevin Mooney’s been very, very successful for us all year – for three years. Games usually don’t finish that way – when him and Mike pitch, games don’t end that way and it just wasn’t quite that way today.”
Szefc shouldn’t feel bad, though. Virginia has been crushing the postseason dreams of its opponents with late-inning comebacks throughout this NCAA Tournament so far.
In game one of the Lake Elsinore Regional, Virginia’s offense was hitless for six innings but posted six runs in the final three innings to cruise to a 6-1 win over Southern California. In game two, UVa broke open a one-all tie with San Diego State with a two-run eighth inning and won 3-1. In the regional final, Virginia used a three-run eighth to tie the game against USC and employed a five-run top of the 11th to secure a 14-10 win.
In NCAA Tournament play so far, Virginia has outscored opponents in the eighth inning 11 to 1. Since the Duke series in mid-May the Hoos have gone 5-2 when trailing or tied in a game after seven innings, which includes their last three NCAA contests. Virginia’s final series of the regular season had some of that magic too. The Hoos tied the series opener against North Carolina 1-1 in the top of the ninth and won it with a run in the 10th.
Senior third baseman Kenny Towns said the Cavaliers’ approach has been a matter of focusing on the moment and not worrying about what happened earlier in a game, week, or season.
“One thing we really like to focus on later in the game is, ‘Have your best at-bat of the day?’, because it really doesn’t matter what you do up to that point,” Towns explained. “Whether you had bad at-bats or good at-bats, it comes down to doing your job at the end of the game for your team and just giving yourself a chance to win.”
That mentality is one thing, but usually success in those situations favors teams loaded with experienced juniors and seniors. That’s not entirely the case for Virginia where freshmen like Pavin Smith and Adam Haseley have been in the thick of things. In the regional final and Friday’s Super Regional rally, a junior did contribute to the cause but Kevin Doherty had just 13 appearances in his first two seasons at UVa – all as a pitcher not as a clutch hitter. Yet, he delivered the go-ahead hit against USC and Maryland in the last two games.
Coach Brian O’Connor credits his junior and senior leadership with exhibiting the “UVa way” of preparation and process.
“I think it says something to leadership we have on this club,” O’Connor said. “You think about Towns, Matt Thaiss, and Robbie Coman and other guys who have been on this stage before. How they teach the younger players how to carry themselves, how they should act in the dugout, and how they should act when things don’t go their way. Even when we fell down 2-0, 3-0, there wasn’t panic. They knew they were putting up some quality at-bats and we knew that we had a chance. So I think it all speaks to the leadership we have and those young players have learned the right way.”
Developing players along the way has been a process O’Connor and his staff established from the first day they arrived in Charlottesville. At Virginia leadership isn’t done through yelling and in-your-face speeches, it’s done with sound coaching and the examples of guys like Towns.
“The coaches do a great job of getting the young guys to believe in what we’re doing here,” said Towns. “We don’t have to motivate guys with speeches – leadership is not with the mouth but with what you do.”
This season may have been the epitome of the UVa process. With injuries, weather issues, and youth providing challenges, the 2015 Cavaliers have been through a career’s worth of adversity. So by this time in the season, being behind a few runs is a walk in the park.
“This whole season we have had some heartbreaking losses and had to come back from tough situations and we are kind of used to it all season,” said Doherty, who hit a bases-clearing three run double for the key hit in Virginia’s five-run outburst Friday. “We just take that into every single at-bat and the guys are doing a great job of that.”
In other words, trusting the process. That’s just Virginia’s way of doing business and with one more win in the Super Regional, it could propel the Hoos to their fourth College World Series appearance.
