Cavaliers prep for ACCs, O’Connor believes UVA is in NCAAs

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Virginia is one of the hottest teams in college baseball heading into the ACC Tournament in Durham, N.C., starting today, and Brian O’Connor hopes the Cavaliers can use the event to continue that momentum toward the upcoming NCAAs.

UVA, the No. 6 seed, won’t see action until late Wednesday night (set for 9 p.m., if the game starts on time) and will await the winner of Tuesday’s Notre Dame vs. Boston College contest in the newly-formatted, single-elimination tournament. O’Connor will start Jay Woolfolk on the mound.

The Cavaliers (32-17, 16-11 ACC) dropped their series against BC in early March when UVA was struggling and lost two of those three games against the Eagles. Virginia did not play Notre Dame.

While O’Connor’s squad was ranked No. 2 in the nation right out of the gates, it didn’t respond to the lofty expectations and stumbled, sputtered and staggered to a disappointing 12-11 record after being swept at home by Duke amid a five-game losing streak in late March.

Then, something changed. Was it a Come-to-Jesus-Meeting, a players-only meeting that lit a fire under the underachieving Cavaliers?

“There was a number of meetings throughout that time, whether I had with the team or there were some that were just player-led, and that speaks to the leadership and how much it means to these guys,” O’Connor said. “Then it just comes down to playing, going out there and playing good, hard-nosed Virginia baseball.

“Then, four weeks ago, I had an honest meeting with the team of the reality of where we were at, at that point in time, that basically our backs were against the wall and we needed to take advantage of every opportunity that we had in front of us. And they have done that.”

The Cavaliers turned their season completely around and arrive in Durham having won 12 of their last 14 and 20 of their last 26 games.

As O’Connor pointed out, in the game of baseball, winning like that is “pretty incredible.”

“In football, you’re out of the playoffs, but in baseball, that puts you in the playoffs,” the UVA skipper said. “So it was our players’ mentality and they got after it, and we’re not going to be denied.”

Selection Sunday is coming at the end of the weekend and most projections have Virginia safely in the 64-team field. While O’Connor wants the Cavaliers to be successful in Durham this week, he firmly believes his team is already in the NCAAs.

O’Connor said his team’s sole focus is to win an ACC championship and everything else falls out from where it is.

“I do not believe that we have to go to the ACC Tournament and do something to say that we’re in the [NCAAs],” O’Connor said. “I mean we’ve won six of our nine ACC series. Teams that have done that historically, in my time in the league (since 2003), have gotten into the NCAA Tournament 100 percent of the time.

“We’re five games above .500 in the league. There’s never been an ACC team that hasn’t gone to the NCAA Tournament with that resume. This is one of the top two leagues in America, year in and year out, and we finished in sixth place, only a game-and-a-half back from first place. So that’s an impressive resume.”

O’Connor said the Cavaliers have been playing with the theme of “playoff baseball” for the past four weeks, and that philosophy has served his team well.

“Wednesday night, it’s not going to be any different,” the coach said.

UVA’s confidence is sky-high after its impressive span of winning baseball, going down to Georgia Tech and winning that series, nearly sweeping the Yellow Jackets, sweeping Miami at Disharoon Park, going to Blacksburg to win a regular-season-ending series, the confidence is soaring.

“It’s at an all-time high,” O’Connor said. “They believe in each other. They believe no matter who’s at the plate or who’s on the mound, that they’re going to do the job. It’s about playing your best baseball at the most important time. We have many examples of teams that have felt their way around most of the year and made some pretty special runs.”