Friday morning's matchup at Truist Field in Charlotte had the makings of a pitcher's duel for a spot in the ACC semifinals.
Virginia and Notre Dame were both starting first-team All-ACC left-handers, Andrew Abbott and John Michael Bertrand, in the final game of Pool A play. Both pitchers entered the game with seven wins and sub-3.00 ERAs on the season. Neither had lost a start since mid-April.
Then, after matching one-hit scoreless frames in the first inning, Bertrand plunked UVa's Devin Ortiz on a 1-2 pitch to start the second.
Notre Dame's ace didn't retire another batter. After that leadoff hit-by-pitch, the next three Virginia hitters ripped extra base hits. Nic Kent took a hanging breaking ball from Bertrand to deep left field for a two-run home run. After a Logan Michaels double, Alex Tappen crushed his own long two-run bomb to left. Three pitches later, Jake Gelof took Bertrand deep to left for his first college homer.
With that five-run frame, the rout was on.
The Wahoos would add nine more throughout the afternoon, eliminating the ACC's top seed with a 14-1 victory. They made a little school history on Zack Gelof's three-run shot in the fifth inning, making Friday the first time a pair of brothers homered in the same game for UVa in school history.
With the win, the Hoos advanced beyond pool play at the ACC Tournament for the first time since winning the championship in 2011. They'll play Duke at 1 p.m. Saturday in the semifinals.
"I feel like our approach has improved throughout the season at the plate and it's a lot more aggressive," UVa coach Brian O'Connor said. "It's not as selective, looking for the perfect pitch, and our competitiveness with two strikes has really, really improved. It’s the right time to be doing it."
Betrand's day was done after those back-to-back homers in the second. At 2.0 innings, it marked the shortest outing of the season for the graduate transfer from Furman. UVa's three long balls—Bertrand (7-2) had only allowed four home runs in 12 starts during the regular season—and five earned runs were the most he had allowed in a Notre Dame uniform. Bertrand's ERA rose from 2.77 to 3.33 after getting shelled in Charlotte.
"It seemed like his stuff was all right today, but we just kind of punished the mistakes," said Zack Gelof, who finished the day 3-for-5 with five RBI. "He was leaving the off-speed pitches up in the zone, where his success is kind of the fastballs and off-speed out of the zone. ... So it was less on him and more on us just sticking to our approach, and obviously it was pretty successful all around."
Meanwhile, Bertrand's All-ACC counterpart just kept doing what he has done for the last month: Posting zeros on the scoreboard. Abbott (8-5) pitched into the seventh for a fifth straight start, dropping his season ERA to 2.63 with 6.1 shutout innings. He finished the day with nine strikeouts, five hits allowed and one walk in 6.1 scoreless innings.
"My mentality (going) out, I'm just telling myself that I'm better than every team that I face," Abbott said. "Just trying to be a bulldog on the mound. That's never changed since I've been in college. But it helps to turn around and look and you see a nine-spot or a five-spot on the board. That obviously takes a little pressure off you."
He exited the game carrying a streak of 24.2 scoreless innings, dating back to the fourth inning of his start at Virginia Tech on April 30th. He last allowed an earned run in the sixth inning against Duke on April 23rd, a span of 30.1 shutout innings. Abbott improved to 5-0 with a 0.79 ERA in his last five starts -- a line that does not include his scoreless inning out of the bullpen against Virginia Tech on Tuesday.
"He’s as good as there is out there," said O'Connor. "Talking about making a statement, he's making a statement. What this guy has done down the stretch run is just remarkable."
Friday's 14 runs were the most for Virginia in an ACC tournament game since beating NC State by that same 14-1 score on May 12, 1990. The Wahoos racked up 14 hits, with the final three hitters in the lineup—Tappen, the younger Gelof and Chris Newell—going a combined 6-for-12 with five RBI and six runs scored. Kent and Zack Gelof both now have career-best seven homers on the season; Kent also raised his team-leading RBI total to 40, also a career high. For Tappen, who made his first career start in left field against the lefty Bertrand, Friday's monster two-run shot gave him two on the season.
Friday's victory made it seven wins the last eight games and eight of 10 for the Wahoos, who began the week as the No. 8 seed in the ACC tournament.
In Saturday's semifinals, UVa will face a Duke team that has won its last 10 in a row, including a 2-0 run through Pool D as the No. 9 seed. The Blue Devils advanced with a 3-2 win on Thursday against Miami that ended on a two-run walk-off home run by Michael Rothenberg.
The Cavaliers took two of three from Duke at Disharoon Park last month, when both teams were scraping to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive. Virginia is 10-3 since that weekend; Duke is 12-2.
"We're going to play a hot Duke team tomorrow," Abbott said. "It's going to be a bloodbath out there. It's going to be our best versus their best, and that's kind of what you want in a baseball game. You want to come to the field and expect a good game."
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