For the 8th time in 14 seasons, the Virginia baseball team will be playing in an NCAA Super Regional. The Hoos dispatched East Carolina 8-3 in the Regional Final on Sunday to earn a hosting role in the next round against Duke.
To get there, UVA needed a clutch outing Sunday and it got exactly that on multiple fronts.
Starting pitcher Connelly Early was spectacular. The Army transfer and Virginia native allowed just 2 runs in his 6.1 innings of work. He gave up 7 hits, walked 1, and struck out 10. That matched his career best for strikeouts.
Things were a little rocky early as both teams plated runs in the first inning. ECU’s pitching, however, held the Virginia bats at bay for the next five frames. Meanwhile, the Pirates scored their second run in the fourth inning but could have had more.
The Pirates placed runners on first and second with one out when Justin Wilcoxen’s RBI single into center field gave Carolina the 2-1 lead. Early put out the fire, though, as he fanned the next two hitters to end the threat. In the fifth, the Pirates had runners at first and second and Early again repelled ECU with a strikeout.
East Carolina coach Chris Godwin said his club struggled to get big hits with runners in scoring position.
“For us to keep them down for 15 innings out of the 18 innings that we played, it’s pretty good when, in my opinion, this is the best offense in the country,” Godwin said. “The difference in the game was, they got two, three-run homers and we didn’t get a big hit with guys on base.”
With ECU trying to force the NCAA Tournament Regional into Monday, UVA did its damage in the seventh and eighth innings when the offense came through in a big moment just like Early had on the mound. A pair three-run bombs did the trick.
In the seventh, Henry Godbout singled and Colin Tuft walked to put two men on base. Ethan O’Donnell came to the plate looking for his first hit of the regional. He made it a big one. O’Donnell took Pirate pitcher Landon Ginn’s first offering, an 86 MPH fastball, to the opposite field and deposited into the Clubhouse chairbacks in left center field.
More fireworks came in the eighth as Kyle Teel singled up the middle and Casey Saucke was intentionally walked to again put two runners on base. That opened the door for Anthony Stephan to plant Carter Spivey’s 88 MPH low and away fastball just to the right of the 404FT sign on the centerfield wall, clearing the bases and upping UVA’s lead to 7-3.
Though the Pirate pitchers kept the Hoos in check for 15 innings, allowing just 3 runs otherwise, Virginia coach Brian O’Connor was confident his hitters would break through, while still crediting the ECU pitchers for their effort.
“That’s a credit to East Carolina,” O’Connor noted. “They run some really good arms out there. That’s why they have 47 wins. That happens from a high quality pitching – which is what they have.”
Early, who struggled in his last start against North Carolina in the ACC Tournament, said having conversations with his fellow pitchers and preparing well helps rebuild your confidence.
“Working every day with the other starters and relievers, chatting teammate to teammate helps rebuild your confidence after a tough outing and it helps your realize you’ve got to trust your stuff,” said Early. “Your going to go through ups and downs the entire season but you have to stick with what you do best and put yourself in the best position.”
O’Connor highlighted Early’s performance and how it shows the value of bringing in experienced players through the portal.
“Connelly was able to manage innings and he had some traffic in the game. This is what somebody that has experience and is a little bit older can do,” O’Connor said.
In the end, Virginia advanced with the 8-3 win thanks to contributions from multiple players. O’Connor was pleased with his offense, even if it took them a while to get warmed up.
“I was impressed with our approach offensively and have been impressed with it all year. I think we’re leading the country in batting average,” O’Connor added with a smile. “It’s hard to beat that.”
In what has seemed to be the case all season long, key hits can come from anywhere in the lineup. From the guy whose batting .267 or the one hitting .410. It can also frustrate opponents.
“It’s a 2-1 game Saturday and it could have gone either way. [Ethan] Anderson fights a ball into right field that is a two-out RBI,” Godwin said. “It’s baseball.”
Then O’Donnell lifted Virginia back into the lead Sunday. He has had a superb season as UVA’s 2-hole hitter and centerfielder. He was not having a wonderful 2023 Charlottesville Regional, however, as he went to the plate hitless before the big moment. But baseball has a way of altering one’s fate.
“Baseball is a tough game,” O’Donnell admitted. “It will put you down and keep you down if you let it.
Our Mindset Coach Brandon Guyer, he pushes the Pitch 1 mentality. … That’s the kind of mindset I had this weekend, not everything has gone my way and instead of looking at it game by game, looking at it pitch by pitch, and being ready for the next [pitch].”
Like Stephan. The team teases him good naturedly because he’s not a big home run hitter, but all the players and coaches were fired up to see Stephan’s 404’-plus dinger.
“We kid around with Anthony that he can’t get one out,” O’Connor said. “He always jokes in batting practice that he can’t hit one out. That [home run] was great to see.”
What sets this Virginia team apart from others before it, and maybe even the 2015 CWS team, is that it appears that at any given time, anyone can make a big play, throw a key pitch, bloop a game-winning RBI single, or steal a critical base.
“Who knows who’s going to have a big hit,” O’Donnell said. “[Sunday]’s a great example, it’s one guy, then the next guy steps up. The next guy and it starts with Connelly having a fantastic start.”
While this regional had numerous key hits and key at-bats, it also had outstanding pitching.
O’Connor said there’s “no way” he could have asked for more from his starting pitchers this weekend. While acknowledging that Brian Edgington could have pitched longer in his outing of five perfect innings in the Army game, thanks to a large lead O’Connor wanted to save him in case he was needed for a Monday winner-take-all game.
“All three [starters] pitched deep into the game; all three got us off to a great start,” O’Connor said. “We gave up 4 runs this weekend. That is remarkable. The pitching staff and the defense, in todays’ day and age of college baseball with all the runs scored, to give up 4 total runs over three games. This is impressive what this pitching staff did this weekend.”
Winning a regional is difficult. Thus far, three top 8 nationals seeds, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, and Clemson have all lost their regionals and Stanford faces a tough Texas A & M team and hopes to avoid becoming the fourth.
“That’s the key in this game. This game is built around failure. They’re going to fail a lot in an at-bat and game to game. What makes a difference in teams is how they process and how they handle it,” O’Connor said.
“This is hard to do,” he reiterated. “You see all across the country, teams that are highly successful in the regular season and sometimes have a tough time winning a regional. To be sitting here having won a regional you need a lot of guys to step up and this team is as good as any of them from that standpoint.”
Virginia committed only one error in the entire weekend and opponents did not even attempt to steal on Kyle Teel. The Hoos improved on their NCAA leading .334 batting average by hitting .345 against the regional field and bested their season ERA from 3.83 (tied for No. 4 in the NCAA) with a microscopic 1.37 for the three outings. Early now stands with a 3.35 ERA, Parker holds a 3.78, and Edgington is at 3.64 for the season.
“In every facet of the game, we played at a very high level,” O’Connor said.
and now let’s fook Dook!