After Friday’s Game 1 loss to Duke in the Charlottesville Super Regional, Nick Parker said the Virginia baseball team would be aggressive Saturday and attack the elimination game. From the opening at-bat, it was clear those words rang true for the Cavaliers.
The Hoos immediately showed they came to play. On a 0-1 count, leadoff batter Griff O’Ferrall launched a shot over the left field wall to give the Hoos a lead they would not relinquish. O’Ferrall’s first home run of the season set the tone and UVA pounded Duke 14-4 to force a winner-take-all Game 3 on Sunday at noon.
Virginia starting pitcher Connelly Early reminded the media in attendance that “[He] didn’t know how many times it’s been this year, but it seems like every time, Griff O’Ferrall is on base when he leads off a game. He’s got to be batting like .600.”
Actually, it’s .419 (26- 62) but close enough.
It didn’t take long for UVA’s defense to show it came to play too. With O’Ferrall providing the 1-0 lead out of the gates, Duke led off its half of the first inning with a base hit to left center by Alex Mooney. Andrew Fischer smacked a sharp ground ball that was slickly fielded by first baseman Ethan Anderson, who went to O’Ferrall at second base for out number one. The shortstop tossed a perfect relay to hustling pitcher Early to complete the 3-to-6-to-1 double play at first.
“I’ll tell you I thought that we played magnificently in every facet of the game,” Cavalier coach Brian O’Connor said. “Certainly, we came today ready to play, swinging the bats [and] Connelly Early was outstanding again.”
Indeed, Early turned in an impressive performance. He went 7 innings and allowed no earned runs with no walks while striking out 8. The 9 hits he allowed did produce some traffic on the basepaths but after fighting through a bump in the fourth inning, he was in solid control of noise around the horn thereafter.
Now standing with a 12-2 record on the season, Early credited the offense with its aggressive approach for setting him up for success.
“The biggest thing was our offense coming out hot today,” Early said. “O’Ferrall set the tone. When the first batter of the game takes the ball deep the crowd is going to get into it and we needed them to help us bounce back and set us up for a good game [Sunday].”
Duke centerfielder Giovanni DiGiacomo, who had one of Duke’s 12 total hits, said Early was filling up the zone and it made him hard to handle.
“He was throwing four pitches in the zone for strikes and when you’re doing that you’re tough to beat,” DiGiacomo said. “He did well throughout the whole game.”
Early agreed his control felt good during the game, but he also said getting ahead of Duke’s lineup was the biggest thing.
“I felt I had pretty good command of my stuff today,” Early said. “Going 0-1 to start yourself off in all those at-bats is huge because it makes the hitter a little more defensive at the plate. Trying to fill up the zone and limit free bases is always a huge key.”
With Early in a groove and O’Ferrall providing the early spark, Virginia remained aggressive. The Cavalier offense pushed the attack against Duke starter Alex Gow in the second. Gow actually hurt his own cause when he plunked Ethan Anderson on a 1-2 count. Casey Saucke singled to put runners at the corners and Anthony Stephan’s fly out plated Anderson. With two outs, Saucke stole second and Henry Godbout’s RBI single drove him home to push the UVA lead to 3-0.
Virginia continued its aggressive hitting in the fourth. With runners at the corners, Duke coach Chris Pollard brought in reliever Aaron Beasley to replace Gow, who gave up 4 runs on 5 hits in 3.1 innings. On Beasley’s first pitch, UVA left fielder Harrison Didawick’s sacrifice fly to centerfield brought Saucke home again this inning to boost the lead to 4-0.
The homestanding Blue Devils (due to NCAA Tournament play) cut the lead to one in the bottom of fourth but that was as close as they would get the rest of the afternoon.
With one gone in the top of the fifth, UVA opened up the fireworks display. Jake Gelof opened the show with an opposite field single and advanced to second when new Duke pitcher Adam Boucher hit Kyle Teel with inside pitch on the leg. That brought Anderson back to the batter’s box. He took Boucher’s 93 mph, low fastball and smashed his fourth postseason home run over the right field pavilion to put the Hoos back on top by four.
Stephan added another homer in the inning for an 8-3 lead, but Anderson’s blast seemed to suck the life out of the Duke team after it had cut the lead to one in the previous inning. Coach O’Connor noted that was the biggest swing of the game.
UVA’s offense went back to work in the sixth. With one out and O’Ferrall on first, Ethan O’Donnell doubled to centerfield and moved O’Ferrall to third. Gelof, now with an RBI opportunity, did not miss. The Cavaliers’ career RBI leader laced a double into centerfield that scored O’Donnell and O’Ferrall staking the Hoos to an 8-run cushion.
Gelof was not finished.
Moving on to the eighth inning, he brought the fans back to their feet. After missing a walk-off, 3-RBI dinger Friday by roughly 18”, Gelof shattered a 442-foot, no doubt, 2-RBI missile over the left field bleachers.
Gelof Blast!!! @UVABaseball @VirginiaSports @thesabre @JakeGelof pic.twitter.com/JYzKggrtwQ
— Photo by JamesBeeler (@PhotoByJabeeler) June 10, 2023
Gelof’s blast was his 23rd home run of the season, breaking the program’s single season record of 22 in the process. The Golden Spikes Award and Dick Howser Trophy semifinalist also set a new career high in RBI with 184, jumping past former UVA third basemen Steven Proscia’s 182. Gelof now has 48 career home runs and O’Connor said he was glad to have Gelof around for another game.
“The University of Virginia has had baseball for 120 years and this guy owns the record, who knows if it will ever be broken again,” O’Connor said.
And if that historic moment wasn’t enough, the Hoos didn’t want to end the party without showing off a little more two-out flash. Still in the eighth, Teel walked and advanced to third on Anderson’s single before both scored. UVA’s third and fourth two-out RBI of the frame came off Saucke’s double to right field.
The 14 runs are the most the Hoos have ever scored in a Super Regional and the offensive stat lines were vastly different from Game 1.
Friday, the Hoos hit .235 vs. .368 Saturday. Friday, UVA finished 1-10 with two outs, 2-9 leading off an inning, 4-16 with runners on base, 2-13 (.154) with runners in scoring position, and 3-21 against left-handed pitching. Saturday, Virginia posted plus .500 batting averages with runners on base (.526) and with runners in scoring position (.500). The Hoos doubled their leadoff hitting percentage from .222 in Game 1 to .444 in Game 2.
Duke’s skipper said his team struggled in a lot of two-strike counts and failed to make the pitches needed to record an out.
“I think you can look back at a lot of different times today where we didn’t get a pitch to the intended spot,” Pollard explained. “I want to be really clear – I’m not taking nothing away from UVA and their abilities offensively. They’re really good at handling mistakes. Virginia showed off their offense which can be explosive.”
That all set the stage for a win or go home Game 3 on Sunday. The two teams play at noon for the third straight day and that will determine the Super Regional winner for a spot at the College World Series in Omaha. Not that anyone needed to be reminded of what’s on the line.
”It’s one game,” O’Connor said. “Obviously, we all know what’s at stake, they know what’s at stake, and that’s what makes it great. That’s why these young men go to Duke, that’s why they got to Virginia is to have an opportunity to play in a game [Sunday] of the magnitude that it is.”
