Griff McGarry will get another opportunity to extend his postseason resurgence when Virginia faces Mississippi State on Tuesday night at the College World Series.
The senior right-hander will make his third start of this NCAA Tournament when the Wahoos face the Bulldogs (7 p.m., ESPN2) It’ll be the first time McGarry has taken the mound this postseason without the specter of elimination hanging over the Hoos.
McGarry (0-5, 6.06 ERA) will be opposed by MSU’s Christian MacLeod (6-5, 4.24) after both teams won their pool play openers on Sunday, with the Wahoos shutting out Tennessee 6-0 and then Mississippi State beating Texas 2-1.
McGarry has a 2.61 ERA in 10.1 innings in his two postseason starts and he’s given up just four hits and walked seven while notching 18 strikeouts. With the Cavaliers down 0-1 against Dallas Baptist last Sunday in the best-of-three Columbia Super Regional, McGarry matched his career high with seven innings pitched and struck out 10, giving up no runs on two hits in a no-decision in UVa’s eventual 4-0 win.
Following Sunday’s win against Tennessee, UVa coach Brian O’Connor mentioned McGarry as one of the pitchers who has emerged for the Cavaliers during this postseason run.
“The hardest thing that we do is to make decisions on which guy are we going to give the ball to,” O’Connor said, “because there’s a lot of great choices.”
McGarry teamed up with relievers Brandon Neeck and Kyle Whitten for that shutout of Dallas Baptist in the super regionals. On Sunday, it was starter Andrew Abbott and right-hander Matt Wyatt who combined to keep the Vols off the board. That performance lowered the staff ERA to 2.93 in nine NCAA Tournament games this postseason.
Tennessee arrived in Omaha with 98 home runs on the season, the most among the eight teams in this year’s CWS, while slugging .477 as a team and averaging 7.1 runs per game. On Sunday, the Volunteers failed to notch an extra-base hit, with Abbott and Wyatt combining to allow six singles and three walks while striking out 15. They were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position and stranded eight runners on base.
“Tennessee’s talented, very, very talented. They can beat you with one swing of the bat,” O’Connor said afterward. “And, so, limiting the damage from not walking guys and then just execution. You’ve got to execute it on them. Because they’re very, very skilled. And you know that because of the runs that they’ve put up this year.”
It was the latest example of the UVa pitching staff shutting down a powerful offense this postseason. Old Dominion finished the regular season leading the country with 101 long balls and the Monarchs entered the Columbia Regional averaging 8.2 runs and 1.80 home runs per game while host South Carolina was averaging 5.8 runs and 1.44 homers. UVa played each team twice in the first round, limiting them to a total of 12 runs and four homers in those four games.
Dallas Baptist, meanwhile, was averaging 7.9 runs and 1.73 homers heading into their super regional series with the Cavaliers. In those three games, UVa pitchers held the Patriots to eight total runs and four dingers.
Wyatt threw five shutout innings in a start against South Carolina that first weekend then held DBU off the board for the final 5.2 innings of last Monday’s deciding third game of the Super Regional. After earning his first career save with three more empty frames against Tennessee on Sunday, Wyatt extended his scoreless streak to 13.2 to start this NCAA Tournament.
The winner of tomorrow’s game won’t play again until Friday; the loser will face the winner of Tuesday’s early game between Tennessee and Texas in an elimination game on Thursday. Mississippi State is hitting .280 as a team on the season, averaging 7.0 runs and 1.13 home runs per game. They managed just five hits against Texas on Sunday night, scoring on a sacrifice fly and an RBI triple in the fourth inning.
Virginia’s win on Sunday marked the third time in nine games this postseason that the Hoos only had to use two pitchers to get a win. That allows O’Connor and pitching coach Drew Dickinson to go into Tuesday night’s game against Mississippi State armed with a rested staff. That quality depth gave the Cavaliers’ head coach a reason for optimism in the aftermath of UVa’s victory against the Vols.
“I feel we have some really elite arms and many of them,” O’Connor said. “So to only have had to use two of them certainly excites me.”
Bulldogs the Latest SEC Foe For Virginia
It’s impossible to look at Virginia’s history at the College World Series without using the spectrum of the its success against SEC programs.
Sunday’s 6-0 win against Tennessee marked UVa’s 21st game in five all-time visits to Omaha. Seventeen of those games have come against SEC opponents, including the last 12 in a row. With Sunday’s win, in the first-ever meeting between the Vols and Hoos, O’Connor’s clubs improved to 9-8 against SEC teams at the CWS.
UVa is 4-0 all-time against non-SEC opponents in Omaha.
Another SEC foe awaits on Tuesday night. That winner’s bracket game will be the first time UVa and Mississippi State have crossed paths in Omaha but the two programs do have some previous postseason history: The Bulldogs’ barnstorming tour to the finals of in 2013 included a weekend in Charlottesville, where their fans commandeered Disharoon Park to watch Mississippi State eliminate the No. 6 national seed with two straight wins in the Super Regional round.
With those two losses, O’Connor’s teams dropped to 3-9 in his first dozen meetings against SEC schools in NCAA Tournament games. In five postseason appearances since that 2013 super regional, the Wahoos are 12-5 against the SEC. That run is headlined by back-to-back three-game CWS Finals appearances against Vanderbilt when the two schools traded national titles in 2014 and 2015. In those two straight runs to the finals, the Cavaliers faced just one non-SEC school: the marathon 3-2 win against TCU in 15 innings during pool play in 2014.
This year’s Virginia team is 2-1 against SEC schools, splitting two games against South Carolina during regional weekend before beating the Vols on Sunday afternoon in Omaha.
Mississippi State is the No. 7 national seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament and the Bulldogs moved into the winner’s bracket behind a historic performance by starter Will Bednar in Sunday’s win against Texas. In six innings, the sophomore right-hander rang up 15 strikeouts, the most ever for a pitcher in a College World Series game.
Closer Landon Sims fanned six more Longhorns in the final three innings. Those 21 total strikeouts are also the most all-time in a CWS game.
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