It’s a scheduling coincidence that for the second straight season, the Virginia baseball team will open a three-game Coastal Division series against Georgia Tech on April Fool’s Day.
At 23-2 overall, UVa will take the field on Friday at Disharoon Park ranked No. 4 in the country by D1Baseball.com. The Wahoos begin the weekend tied with Miami atop the Coastal Division standings at 7-2 through three ACC weekends, three games in front of the 4-5 Yellow Jackets.
It’s the fourth of 10 ACC weekends on the Wahoos’ schedule, “so we don’t ever make more of one weekend than another,” said UVa baseball coach Brian O’Connor, “until you’re forced into a situation that you have to like last year.”
The Cavaliers’ current circumstances contrast starkly to those surrounding last year’s trip to Atlanta. This year’s team has won each of it first three conference series, with its only losses coming in Sunday series finales. Heading into April last year, the Hoos had lost all five of their previous ACC weekends. They were 11-13 overall and at the bottom of the Coastal standings with a 4-11 conference record.
O’Connor laid it out to last year’s team prior to the opener at Georgia Tech, then the No. 6 team in the country: To get back to .500 in the league by the end of the regular season, UVa would need to average two wins over their final seven ACC series (because of COVID-19 precautions, the conference played a 36-game schedule last year). Without getting to that .500 mark, an NCAA regional berth was unlikely.
"I think everyone took that to heart and kind of realized yeah, there’s pressure,” recalled right-hander Matt Wyatt, “but also we have nothing to lose so we might as well just try to win.”
The Wahoos lost that Thursday night opener at Georgia Tech on April 1st to bottom out at 4-12 in the ACC. They came back and won the next two to clinch their first conference series of the spring. That sparked a furious second-half rally in which Virginia went 14-7 across those final seven conference weekends to finish 18-18 in the ACC—then reached the semifinals of the ACC tournament, earned a No. 3 regional seed in the NCAA tournament and eventually reached the College World Series for the fifth time in program history.
This year’s team picked up where the Hoos left off last year. Virginia enters the weekend second in the country in both scoring (11 runs per game) and team ERA (2.33), fifth in both batting average (.331) and home runs (46), and in the top 10 nationally in more than a half dozen other statistics.
That charge has been led by a nucleus of veterans back from last season’s postseason surge. The heart of that potent lineup is stocked with veterans Kyle Teel, Devin Ortiz, Jake Gelof, Alex Tappen and Chris Newell—all back after contributing to that postseason surge last spring.
“They understand the switch that we needed to make about midseason last year,” said O’Connor, “of what it takes, the little minute details it takes to be exceptional at this level of baseball. And I think there has been some carryover with that.”
Ortiz says the Hoos brought that ‘backs against the wall’ mentality into this season “because we don’t want what happened last year to happen.”
“I think it was important that a lot of guys know and they understand: Take advantage of every opportunity we can, play the game hard and good things will happen,” the fifth-year senior added.
UVa brings a school-record 19-game home win streak into this weekend’s series against the Yellow Jackets, who were swept at NC State last weekend in their first taste of ACC baseball on the road this spring. The Wahoos are a combined 6-0 in the first two games of each conference series this week; both of their losses came in Sunday series finales, including an 8-1 loss at Wake Forest last weekend.
Virginia has made one change to the weekend rotation for the Georgia Tech series, with sophomore left-hander Jake Berry—who made a strong impression in his first college start last Saturday at Wake—getting the nod this Sunday in place of fellow lefty Brandon Neeck.
At 17-9 overall, Georgia Tech is ranked No. 22 in the country in the latest D1Baseball Top 25; they were ranked as high as No. 10 two weeks ago. The Yellow Jackets are the first nationally-ranked opponent the Wahoos will face this spring. Three other upcoming ACC opponents—No. 17 Miami on the road next week, No. 18 North Carolina in Charlottesville in three weeks and No. 11 Louisville on the road to end the regular season in mid-May—are also ranked this week by D1Baseball.
“We don’t really look at rankings or anything or we try to not watch other teams that much,” Wyatt said, “but I mean, based on last year, we know that there’s some good teams in this league and you can’t let up.
"We’re gonna face some good teams,” the big right-hander added, “and just got to keep your foot on the gas and play good baseball.”
That’s the message O’Connor is delivering to his team as the calendar turns to April and Georgia Tech awaits this season: There are challenges to come at some point in the season’s second half. He believes those veterans who have been at the heart of this spring’s strong start can continue to lean on the lessons of last year’s struggles.
“We’re not gonna go 50-5 in the regular season. Nobody does that in baseball,” the head baseball coach said. “At some point, we’re going to get punched in the mouth, and we’re gonna have to figure out how we respond to that. And hopefully the lessons that these guys have learned in the past will help them get out of that quickly.”
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