Nine weekends of ACC play remain for the Virginia baseball team this spring. That’s 27 games. Three-quarters of the team’s conference schedule.

But the Hoos have won just two of their first nine conference games. UVa is at the bottom of the Coastal Division standings, four games behind a trio of teams at the top. One of those three first-place teams, Pitt, will be in town this weekend.

So the Cavaliers probably need to get to work soon if they want to climb out of the mid-March hole they currently find themselves in.

“We’ve got to get better. We’ve got to improve. It’s not necessarily about our opponent; it’s about what we do,” UVa head coach Brian O’Connor said this week. “So we’ve got to step up and be better than we have been. That’s the bottom line, and that’s what we’re working on.”

O’Connor’s team got back to .500 on the season (8-8) by beating Towson 5-0 at Disharoon Park on Wednesday. It was UVa’s 20th-consecutive win against a midweek non-conference opponent, a streak that now dates back more than two years. In their four midweek games this season, the Hoos are hitting .341 and have outscored their opponents 37-6. Wednesday’s one-hitter was the second straight midweek shutout for the pitching staff.

Afterward, O’Connor praised UVa’s intensity and focus, which he said carried over from a practice on Tuesday that the head coach called “one of the best we’ve had.”

Players also credited the tone that was set in that Tuesday practice, the team’s first after getting swept at home by Notre Dame last weekend.

“Getting swept any time is tough. But you’re going to get new, opportunities, new chances the next day,” UVa shortstop Nic Kent said. “That’s how baseball works.”

“Guys were spirited,” pitcher Zach Messinger added. “No one was hanging their heads. They were ready to move on.”

But through the season’s first month, UVa has struggled to carry its midweek momentum into ACC weekends, particularly at the plate. Virginia has scored just 24 runs in its nine conference games and the Hoos are hitting a league-worst .178 in ACC play.

“Nobody is going to feel sorry for us. Nobody is going to feel sorry for themselves,” said Kent. “Everybody needs to just pick their heads up, keep working. Keep getting better. Doesn’t matter if it’s BP, practice or the game. Everybody can learn something, each and every day. So it’s just keep going, keep attacking each game and staying aggressive.”

Last weekend Notre Dame was the aggressor, or as O’Connor put it, the Fighting Irish “beat us up in every way possible.” The Irish scored 30 runs on 43 hits (the most for Notre Dame in a conference weekend since the 2012 season against Georgetown) including seven home runs. UVa’s team ERA spiked by more than a run. Over the three games, the bullpen—which entered last weekend with a solid 2.96 ERA—was charged with 18 runs (15 earned) in 16.2 innings.

“This weekend was just baseball,” said Messinger, who was charged with five runs in 1.2 innings over two appearances against the Irish. “Notre Dame is a great offensive team.”

“I know what we’re capable of doing there,” O’Connor said, “and we’ll be more consistent on the mound this weekend, for sure.”

He credited the Irish’s approach at the plate, calling it “the best I’d seen in a long time.” But he used Wednesday’s Towson game as an opportunity for some of the veterans in the bullpen to bounce back. All five pitchers who contributed to the one-hitter, including Billy Price, Paul Kosanovich, Messinger, Kyle Whitten, and Stephen Schoch, gave up at least one run in the Notre Dame series.

Afterward, Messinger bristled slightly at the notion of any wavering confidence among the Wahoo pitchers after the Notre Dame series.

“As a staff, since day one we’ve had confidence in ourselves all year, that we’re going to be able to go out there and get the job done,” he said. “If one guy has an off night, we can roll the next guy out, the next guy’s going to step up.”

Notre Dame climbed eight spots to No. 17 in the new D1Baseball.com national poll after sweeping the Wahoos. Right behind them at No. 18 is the Cavaliers’ next opponent. This is the first week that Pitt, picked to finish last in the Coastal Division before the season, has been nationally ranked since May 2013, the year before the program joined the ACC.

Pitt is 6-3 in the league (9-4 overall) despite, like Notre Dame last weekend, not yet playing a game at home. The Panthers opened ACC play by sweeping a three-game series at Florida State then dropped two games at Duke. Last weekend, they took two of three from then-No. 7 Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Entering the weekend, Pitt is tied with the Yellow Jackets and North Carolina for first place in the Coastal.

Since joining the ACC, the Panthers have just one series win against the Wahoos - taking two of three in Pittsburgh in 2018. Pitt is 0-6 in its previous two visits to Charlottesville for ACC weekends.

It sounds like junior right-hander Mike Vasil won’t miss his turn in the starting rotation this weekend against the Panthers.

“I think Mike Vasil is going to end up being okay, O’Connor said on Wednesday. “It’s just kind of day-to-day right now, but I’m encouraged by what I see.”

Last Sunday, Vasil had to leave his start against Notre Dame in the second inning because of a back issue. O’Connor said afterward that Vasil’s back had been bothering him for a few days, and he was pulled as a precaution.

Despite giving up a three-run homer in the first inning on Sunday, Vasil still enters this weekend leading the ACC with a 1.83 ERA, and his three wins are tied for most in the conference. Sunday marked the first time this season that the right-hander didn’t pitch at least six full innings.

Because of the rain in Friday’s forecast for Charlottesville, this weekend’s series won’t open until Saturday, with a 2 p.m. matinee on Monday to wrap it up. It’s likely Vasil will take his regular turn in the weekend rotation in that Monday finale.

O’Connor admitted that while Vasil will benefit from the extra day, he likely would have been ready to pitch even if the schedule hadn’t changed.

“I don’t think that would have mattered,” O’Connor said. “I think he would have been ready to go on Sunday. I really believe that. But every bit helps when you’re dealing with a lower back stiffness, tightness, strain, whatever you want to call it. Any extra time helps from a recovery standpoint.”