Virginia has 36 ACC games on its baseball schedule this spring, the most in program history. Last weekend, the Wahoos played conference games in February for the first time ever.
The Cavaliers only hit .179 as a team and scored six total runs in those three games in Chapel Hill, losing two of three to North Carolina. Brian O’Connor knows more challenging weekends await his team, as the ACC that has nine teams ranked in at least one major college baseball poll this week. That starts with this weekend’s trip to Florida State.
“Obviously we’re going to need to have a good offensive ballclub to really, really compete in this league,” O’Connor said after the 16th-ranked Cavaliers’ 11-1 win at home against George Washington on Tuesday. “So I liked what I saw tonight.”
UVa put the leadoff hitter on base in five of the eight innings at the plate against the Colonials. In contrast, in 27 total innings against UNC last weekend the Wahoos’ leadoff hitter reached base just three times. And UVa’s five two-out runs on Tuesday were more than the four the Cavaliers scored in three games against the Tar Heels.
The Hoos were facing a George Washington team picked to finish eighth in the Atlantic 10 and playing its first game of the season, while UNC’s pitching staff began the week with the lowest team ERA (1.57) and opponent batting average (.161) in the ACC. But beyond the better results, the Cavaliers were encouraged what they saw as a more competitive approach than what the team had at the plate in Chapel Hill.
Senior Brendan Rivoli went 2-for-10 with a pair of strikeouts in the three games at Carolina. After Tuesday’s outing, he said he felt the Wahoos as a lineup had swayed from their fundamentals against the Tar Heels.
“I think we were getting away from just plate discipline in general,” Rivoli explained. “I know myself, I was swinging at bad pitches all weekend. Pitches that weren’t necessarily in the zone, or what I was going up there trying to do. And when you put bad swings on it or have bad discipline, those kinds of things happen.”
Rivoli bounced back with a pair of “barreled-up” extra-base hits against the Colonials, with both his leadoff triple in the second inning and an eighth-inning double coming on the first pitch of those at-bats. Those were two of UVa’s four extra-base hits on the day; it had two all weekend at UNC.
“Today we all kind of took a step back and talked to each other, and we’re like ‘Hey, let’s just hit the reset button right here,’” Rivoli said. “It’s a new day, a new game. Let’s just put our best swings together and see what happens.”
He also pointed to the improved two-strike approach at the plate on Tuesday. UVa finished the UNC series with 17 total hits; seven of those came with two strikes. Five of the 11 hits against George Washington came with two strikes. During one stretch in their four-run seventh inning, the Wahoos had five straight hits. Four of them came with the hitter facing a two-strike count.
“That’s something that is very contagious, and that really fires up the dugout,” Rivoli said. “Seeing guys come up with two strikes and putting it in play, and getting hits off of it. That’s something we pride ourselves in, and seeing that come to fruition is very contagious for us. We need to keep doing that.”
Rivoli was hitting eighth for the first time this season on Tuesday. It was one of the adjustments O’Connor made with the UVa lineup coming out of the UNC series. After seven games in the cleanup spot, Alex Tappen dropped to seventh. Devin Ortiz moved up to fourth after hitting fifth in his previous four starts.
O’Connor also moved Max Cotier from the nine-hole to second in the lineup, bumping Marc Lebreux to the fifth spot. As a freshman last year, Cotier hit second in all 18 of UVa’s games, hitting .338 and scoring 21 runs.
“I just felt it was time to try something new and move him up there,” O’Connor explained. “He’s made some adjustments to what he’s doing offensively, and it’s allowing him to be a little bit more consistent.”
Cotier entered Tuesday’s game hitting just .174 on the season but was coming of a two-hit day in UVa’s 3-2 win in Sunday’s UNC series finale. He had two more hits— both with two strikes—and two RBI, and scored a pair of runs against the Colonials on Tuesday, but downplayed his move back to the top of the lineup afterward.
“I don’t really think it matters where I hit in the lineup,” Cotier said. “One through nine, any guy can hit in any spot. We have a really deep lineup.”
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