Baseball: No. 5 Cavaliers head to Blacksburg for weekend series against Hokies

By Scott Ratcliffe

No. 5 Virginia hits the road for the third time in the first four weeks of ACC play, as the Cavaliers travel to Blacksburg for a three-game Commonwealth Clash set against Virginia Tech this weekend.

Friday’s series opener will be televised on ACC Network, with first pitch set for 8 p.m. Saturday’s game is scheduled for 7, and Sunday’s finale will start at 1. There’s rain in the forecast, so those start times could obviously be altered depending on the weather (Saturday and Sunday’s games will air on ACCNX and the ESPN app).

UVA (23-2, 7-2 ACC) comes in matching its best start in program history through 25 games, while the Hokies (15-9, 2-7) are in last place in the Coastal Division standings.

Virginia coach Brian O’Connor had to reset his pitching rotation after grad transfer Nick Parker (Coastal Carolina) was struck in the face with a line drive in Friday’s win over Florida State. Parker underwent surgery on Wednesday, and it’s not clear how long his recovery process will last.

Connelly Early (6-0, 1.59 ERA), a junior transfer from Army who had been the team’s traditional midweek starter, will shift to a slot in the weekend rotation.

Another grad transfer, Brian Edgington (Elon), will move up a day and take the mound for Friday’s game, while Early will follow on Saturday, and freshman Jack O’Connor (2-1, 2.59 ERA), who owns the nation’s second-lowest ERA among Power Five freshmen, will maintain his Sunday spot.

Edgington (4-0, 1.95 ERA) has only allowed a single earned run across his last 16 innings pitched, while Early ranks in the ACC’s top 10 in several pitching categories.

Tech will counter with Fluvanna County native Drue Hackenberg (1-3, 5.13 ERA) on Friday, Griffin Green (1-1, 6.33 ERA) on Saturday and Anthony Arguelles (0-1, 5.18 ERA) on Sunday.

The Wahoos used a big 7-run second inning to cruise past a solid, 20-win Old Dominion team on Tuesday, striking out 12 Monarchs while allowing just one run on five hits.

At the plate, they produced 8 runs on 11 hits. Juniors Kyle Teel and Jake Gelof head up a loaded Cavalier lineup, which is scattered with guys like sophomore first baseman Ethan Anderson, Northwestern transfer Ethan O’Donnell, and several others who can make some noise with their bats.

Teel (44 hits), Anderson (39) and O’Donnell (36) all rank in the top 10 in the conference in hits, as Virginia has racked up more hits (300) and more doubles (71) than any other team in Division I, and is ranked in the top 10 in the country in runs scored (240), batting average (.334) and on-base percentage (.434).

After claiming their first two road series against a couple of tough, ranked conference opponents (at North Carolina and NC State), the Hoos swept Florida State in convincing fashion at Disharoon Park over the weekend, and sit atop the Coastal standings heading into the weekend.

Just like last week against the Seminoles, O’Connor expects a hard-fought series this weekend at what he believes will be a loud environment at English Field at Atlantic Union Bank Park.

“Yeah, it’ll be great,” said the coach after Tuesday’s win over ODU. “Hey, listen, [the Hokies] have passionate fans like we do. Last year in this ballpark, I think we had something like, I don’t know, 16,000 people in the three games, and Virginia Tech hosted a Regional, hosted a Super Regional last year. They’ve got a lot of momentum in their program, and rightfully so, they’ve earned it. And so we’re looking forward to having three great baseball games down there this weekend.”

The Hokies claimed the three-game set at The Dish last season, their first series win in Charlottesville in 80 years, winning the rubber match by erasing a 4-0 deficit for their largest comeback win against UVA in over a decade. Despite their early-season struggles thus far, O’Connor knows the Hokies will be hungry for some victories this weekend.

“We’ve had great games with Virginia Tech, we have the utmost respect for Virginia Tech for sure,” said O’Connor. “And they’ve got another really good ball club, and we always have a great series with them. And I’m sure this weekend will be no different.

“We’ll have to play great baseball. We’ll have to play baseball like we did this weekend against Florida State to win down there. And it’s always a tough series, and it starts early in the season this year being the fourth weekend of the ACC, but we’re looking forward to having another weekend of ACC baseball.”