UVA ace Abbott shines as Cavaliers batters bomb Notre Dame

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Earlier in the season, Virginia’s ace pitcher Andrew Abbott couldn’t buy run support from his teammates. The second half of the season has been a change of fortune for the senior left-hander.

Abbott pitched pure gold on Friday morning, firing 6.1 innings of five-hit, no-run baseball, while UVA’s batting order delivered 14 hits, including a season-high four home runs to rout top-seeded and seventh-ranked Notre Dame, 14-1. By ousting the Irish (30-11) from the ACC tournament, the Cavaliers advance to Saturday’s semifinals in a 1 p.m. contest against Duke.

While racking up his eighth win of the season, the ACC’s strikeout king this season, notched nine more (136 so far this season), including the 300th of his career, a swinging strikeout of Notre Dame’s last batter in the sixth. Abbott is only the second pitcher in Wahoo history to reach the 300 strikeout plateau.

“It was mainly just coming out and trying to win, trying to stay hot as a team, just to play a really good sound team game,” said Abbott, who became the first Cavalier to win eight games in a season since 2017. “Obviously, the hitting came around again for me. There was just a whole lof of individual efforts that helped our team win this game. The important thing is that it was a team win.”

Over Abbott’s last four starts, the offense behind him has produced 56 runs.

For Virginia, overcoming the Notre Dame obstacle was a really big deal. Earlier in the season, the Irish had put up 30 runs on the Cavaliers in a three-game sweep. Pitcher Zach Messinger said earlier in the week that the lopsided losses to Notre Dame had served as a wake up call for UVA, which was mired in a losing campaign at the time.

The Cavaliers, 29-22, have won seven of their last eight games and 10 of their last 13.

“As I said last week, [Notre Dame] took us behind the woodshed and showed us what we needed to do to be successful in this league, and we played great baseball today in every facet,” UVA skipper Brian O’Connor said. “Certainly the offense was outstanidng. I thought our approach at the plate was really great from the second inning on.

“We just wouldn’t go away in a lot of two-strike battles. That was excellent. We’ve been playing some really great baseball in the last seven weeks and that continues. We’re fortunate to have a shot [Saturday] at the semifinals.”

Eight of UVA’s 13 runs against Notre Dame came with two outs.

The Wahoos blew the game wide open with a five-run second inning. Nic Kent blasted a two-run homer, followed by back-to-back shots by Alex Tappen and Jake Gelof, the first of his collegiate career. Brother Zack Gelof produced a career-high five RBI, including a three-run blast in the fifth inning for a 9-0 Cavaliers lead. Gelof extended his team lead of hitting safely in nine consecutive games.

The elder Gelof was proud of his younger brother gaining his first roundtripper of his UVA career.

“I think that’s been a long time coming,” Zack Gelof said. “He’s got some pop in his bat, so I was really excited about that.”

The Gelofs last homered in the same game in Zack’s senior year of high school.

He was delighted that UVA’s hot bats continued to deliver for its pitching staff, in particular Abbott, who struggled earlier in the season without that support.

“As a team we kind of joke about it because I think the beginning half of the year we gave him almost no support at all, so I think totally all at the back half of the season I think the last five starts, we’ve put up like 10 [runs] plus in each of them,” Gelof said.

The Cavaliers’ offensive punch came at the hands of Notre Dame ace John Bertrand, who was tagged for five hits and five runs against only eight UVA batters.

“It seems like his stuff was alright today, but we just kind of punished some of his mistakes,” Gelof said of Bertrand. “He was leaving the off speed pitches up in the zone where his success is kind of the fast balls and off speed [pitches] out of the zone. It was less of him and more of us just sticking to our approach.”

O’Connor was delighted that Cavaliers bats remained hot.

“That’s what we weren’t getting in the first part of the season,” O’Connor said. “We were facing some really good teams in this league, North Carolina, Florida State, Notre Dame, Pitt, so I feel like our approach has improved throughout the season at the plate and it’s a lot more aggresive. Our competitiveness with two strikes has really improved. It’s the right time to be doing it.”

Abbott said that he hasn’t really changed much in his pitching mechanics or philosophy, and despite the lack of run production early on that he continued to believe in his teammates.

“We played a lot of close games early on in the season and due to the fact that we were facing some really good pitching,” Abbott said. “I just tried to remain constant for the team, keep my pitching constant and we knew that the hitting was going to turn the corner eventually.

“We’re getting a glimpse of what we can do now, so I’d say we’re dangerous right now, but we have got to remain humble and we’ve got to take the next opportunity [Saturday] to come out and play our best baseball.”

When Abbott retired for the day, he got strong support from relievers Stephen Schoch and Matt Wyatt, who finished off the final eight innings. The three VIrginia pitches combined for 16 strikeouts.

Saturday’s semifinal game with Duke, also one of the league’s hottest teams, is scheduled to air live on the ACC Network.