Virginia bounced by Boston College, 12-8, in ACC second round

Courtesy UVA Media Relations

Photo: UVA Athletics

The Virginia baseball team dropped a 12-8 contest on Wednesday night to Boston College at Durham Bulls Athletic Park in the Second Round of the ACC Baseball Championship.

Boston College scored five runs in the first inning, then added two more in both the second and fourth innings, creating a 9-4 lead after the opening four frames. The Cavaliers responded with a four-run sixth, narrowing the game to one run. However, the Eagles secured the win by scoring three insurance runs in the eighth, finalizing the score at 12-8. 

Offensively for Virginia (32-18), Eric Becker went 4 for 4 on the night with a home run and four RBI, while Henry Ford added a 3-for-4 performance and four more RBI of his own.

HOW IT HAPPENED  

Boston College (28-28) jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the top of the first with a pair of doubles and a Virginia fielding error that led to a run scoring.

UVA answered in the bottom of the opening frame with a two-run home run from Becker. The homer was Becker’s ninth of the season.

The Eagles reestablished a five-run lead when a pair of runs scored on a wild pitch and a Virginia throwing error in the top of the second inning.

In the bottom of the frame, the Cavaliers plated a pair of runs on back-to-back RBI singles from Becker and Ford.

After a quiet third, Boston College scored two more runs in the fourth on a Cavalier error and an RBI single to make it a 9-4 ballgame.

Alex Markus pitched 2.1 innings of one-hit ball out of the Virginia bullpen to keep it a five-run game.

Harrison Didawick reached base to open Virginia’s four-run inning on an Eagle error. Didawick later scored on a bases-loaded fielder’s choice before Ford hammered a no-doubt three-run blast that brought UVA back to within a run at 9-8.

Boston College responded with a three-run inning in the top of the eighth, including a two-run double down the line in left and an Eagle scoring on a wild pitch.

In the bottom of the ninth, a trio of Cavalier batters went down in order as Boston College secured the 12-8 final.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

• Virginia drops to 22-7 when Aidan Teel bats leadoff.
• Dating back to the April 6 contest at NC State, the Cavaliers have hit at least one home run in 21 straight games.
• Eric Becker tied his career-high with a quartet of RBIs on Wednesday. The sophomore now leads the team with 52 RBIs on the season.
• Henry Ford’s three-run blast in the sixth was the sophomore’s 11th of the season and tied Chris Arroyo for the team lead.
• UVA has committed five errors in a game twice this season, both against Boston College.
• With the defeat, the Cavaliers lead the all-time series 29-11 over the Eagles.
• Since the start of the Stanford series (March 27), Virginia is 20-7 and has won its last four ACC series to close the season.
• Following the cancellation of the Florida State series, the Cavaliers end the regular season with a 12-3 record with three-straight ACC series wins.

Confident Woolfolk hungry for more postseason success

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Photo: UVA Athletics

About this time a year ago, Jay Woolfolk experienced a baseball rebirth of sorts.

He had struggled most of the 2024 season as a bullpen pitcher and lost his confidence. Woolfolk later explained that he had often felt “one pitch away” from getting over the hump, but couldn’t quite overcome that obstacle.

Virginia coach Brian O’Connor put on his Dr. Phil hat during a late-season, one-on-one meeting with his frustrated hurler and got things straightened out. During the meeting, O’Connor handed Woolfolk a report with the pitcher’s statistical data included and instructed the then-junior right-hander to rip up the report and throw it in the trash basket.

“Starting over, fresh start,” O’Connor told Woolfolk.

The Chesterfield native took the chat to heart, went out and gave Florida State his best effort and impressed the coaches enough that he earned a start against Mississippi State in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament in Charlottesville. Woolfolk mastered the Bulldogs, then repeated with another clutch performance against Kansas State, helping send the Cavaliers to Omaha for the College World Series.

While Woolfolk suffered an injury in Omaha, he had conquered his demons.

Rated the No. 250 prospect in the Major League Baseball Draft, Woolfolk wasn’t picked in the first 10 rounds (315 picks) and promptly decided to return to UVA for his senior year.

Sometime late tonight, Woolfolk will start on the mound for the Cavaliers in the ACC Tournament in Durham, and he’ll be ready to go. Seems as if late-season and certainly postseason baseball suits him well.

“I just believe it’s part of Jay’s DNA, it’s who Jay Woolfolk is,” O’Connor said of his senior starter. “He’s a competitor. He loves to be in the big moments and when he does, more times than not, he steps up.”

Heading into tonight’s game against No. 14-seed Boston College (first pitch scheduled for 9 p.m.), Woolfolk stands at 4-2 on the season with 12 starts and carries a 4.26 ERA, having pitched 63.1 innings. He’s given up 59 hits, struck out 73 and walked only 23. His 82 career appearances are tied for seventh-most in UVA history.

“This kid has had some challenges in his time here,” O’Connor said. “Jay is a winner. Nobody’s career just keeps going up and up and up, but it’s at the highest level of all time.”

Woolfolk has been Virginia’s Friday-night starter all season and has been solid. Just as he stepped up toward the end of last season, he’s done it again down the stretch this season.

The former Benedictine player said last year’s finish has carried over to this season, particularly during the second half of the season.

“Mostly with my confidence,” Woolfolk said before the team departed for Durham. “Just having that mindset of going out there and filling up the [strike] zone, not worrying about anything else, controlling what I can control on the mound, and that’s helped me transition to this season.”

He also learned how to deal with pressure last season, transitioning from the bullpen — when he would enter the game, often inheriting base runners and sometimes in sticky situations — to the starter’s role. That’s all part of managing a game.

When Virginia’s backs were against the wall in March and the team was mired in a 12-11 record, veterans like Woolfolk on the team, guys who had been through tough times and overcame them, guys who had been to Omaha, led the younger players out of the wilderness, kept their confidence up and didn’t reach for the panic button.

Woolfolk said that everyone sticking together was the key in fighting their way out of their funk. He called it “just playing Virginia baseball, playing playoff baseball.”

“We had big expectations (Virginia was ranked as high as No. 2 nationally in one preseason poll), but all we needed was to get back to playing Virginia baseball,” Woolfolk said. “That’s what we’re doing right now. We’re playing for each other, for the program. We weren’t trying to change what we were doing, just play Virginia baseball.”

As a result, UVA has won 20 of its last 26 games, 12 of its last 14, and enters the ACC event as one of the hottest teams in the nation.

“We’re playing with a lot of confidence,” Woolfolk said. “We’re going to play in Durham as if we need to get into the NCAA Tournament. We’re going to play it one game at a time until the selection show (Sunday).”

While some may not like tonight’s late start, in which the 9 p.m. schedule could be backed up if any of the three earlier games fall behind or are delayed, Woolfolk doesn’t worry about such things.

“I know my mom doesn’t like it, but I get to sleep all day,” Woolfolk chuckled.

“I’m just going out and trying to fill up the zone and let my defense play,” he said. “I have a great defense behind me and trust them. I know our offense is going to score, especially how hot we are right now, so I’m trying to limit the other team’s offense and that’s how I’ve been pitching.”

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

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Photo: UVA Athletics

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.”

Virginia takes series, wraps up regular season with 3-1 victory in Blacksburg

Courtesy UVA Media Relations

Photo: UVA Athletics

In the final game of the regular season, the Virginia baseball team defeated Virginia Tech by a score of 3-1 on Saturday at English Field.

UVA starter Tomas Valincius had his best outing of the season in the regular season finale, throwing 6.2 innings of one-run ball to secure his sixth win of the season. The freshman also fanned six Hokies in the victory.

Jacob Ference paced the Cavaliers (32-17, 16-11 ACC) offensively with a 3-for-3 day that was highlighted by a solo home run in the third inning. Aidan Teel went 3 for 4 on the day with a pair of doubles to set the table at the top of the Cavalier lineup.

HOW IT HAPPENED  

On the game’s second pitch, Teel doubled to left field to set up a Chris Arroyo two-run home run later in the inning. The homer was Arroyo’s 11th of the season and put the Cavaliers up 2-0.

The homestanding Hokies (30-24, 12-18) cut the Cavalier advantage in half with a solo leadoff home run from Ben Watson in the bottom of the first.

Two innings later, Ference pushed the UVA lead to 3-1 with a solo home run of his own in the top of the third. The dinger was Ference’s ninth of the season.

After allowing a pair of one-out singles in the bottom second, Valincius retired the next nine Virginia Tech batters he faced before surrendering a one-out single in the fifth.

Alex Markus relieved Valincius with two outs in the seventh. Markus ended the inning by stranding a pair of Hokie base runners with a groundball to second.

In the eighth, Markus neutralized another Virginia Tech threat with a strikeout and throwout from Ference to end the frame.

Matt Lanzendorfer picked up his team-leading fifth save of the season with a scoreless ninth inning to crystallize the 3-1 Virginia victory and the series win over Virginia Tech.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

• Virginia improves to 22-6 when Aidan Teel bats leadoff.
• Dating back to the April 6 contest at NC State, the Cavaliers have hit at least one home run in 20 straight games.
• Arroyo’s home run in the first was his 11th on the season, which is a team best.
• With the win, Virginia improves to 113-93 against Virginia Tech and has won back-to-back season series against the Hokies for the first time since the 2019 and 2021 editions of the Commonwealth Clash.
• Since the start of the Stanford series (March 27), Virginia is 20-6 and has won its last four ACC series to close the season.
• Following the cancellation of the Florida State series, the Cavaliers end the regular season with a 12-2 record with three-straight ACC series wins.

UP NEXT

Virginia is the 6-seed in the 2025 ACC Baseball Championship, with the single-elimination tournament slated to begin play on Tuesday at Durham Bulls Athletic Park. The Cavaliers will get a first-round bye and will face the winner of No. 11 Notre Dame and No. 14 Boston College on Wednesday at 9 p.m. See the full bracket below.