Baseball: No. 2 seed UVA set to face No. 11 Yellow Jackets in ACC pool play

Posted on Wednesday, May. 24, 2023, 6:00 am

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Courtesy UVA Media Relations

No. 12 Virginia, the second seed in this year’s ACC Tournament, opens up Pool B play on Wednesday against Georgia Tech. The Cavaliers will turn around on Thursday and take on seventh-seeded North Carolina for an opportunity to advance to the weekend semifinals. First pitch for both games is scheduled for 3 p.m.

HOW TO FOLLOW

TV: ACC Network
RADIO: WINA (98.9 FM/1070 AM/WINA.com)
LIVE STATS: VirginiaSports.com

PROBABLE PITCHING MATCHUPS

Wednesday – 3 p.m.
Virginia: RHP Nick Parker (6-0, 4.42 ERA, 55.0 IP, 17 BB, 64 SO)
Georgia Tech: RHP Aeden Finateri (2-3, 4.25 ERA, 59.1 IP, 15 BB, 53 SO)

Thursday – 3 p.m.
North Carolina: TBA
Virginia: TBA

LEADING OFF

• Virginia (44-11, 19-11 ACC) won the Coastal Division Championship for the first time since winning back-to-back titles in 2010 and 2011. Virginia has finished first or second in the Coastal in 10 of the last 14 seasons.
• UVA comes into the tournament on a nine-game win streak, second longest in the ACC (Clemson – 12) and tied for fourth-longest in the country. It’s the second win streak of nine or more games this season.
• Virginia’s 44 regular season wins are the second-most in UVA history. The program record of 45, has been achieved four times (2006, 2010, 2011, & 2013).
• UVA’s 19 ACC wins were the most since 2016.
• The 44 wins are the second-most of any team in the country. UVA was the first team in the country to 30 wins and second behind Wake Forest to the 40-win plateau.
• The Cavaliers have won 40 games for the first time since 2017. Virginia has 13 40-win seasons in program history, 12 have come under Brian O’Connor.
• Virginia has the highest team batting average in the country (.336), leads the nation in hits (654) and doubles (149).
• The Cavaliers are tops in the ACC in batting average, doubles, hits, on-base percentage, runs and runs per game.
• Virginia and Oral Roberts are the only two teams in the country to rank in the top-10 in BOTH batting average (.336) and ERA (6th – 3.91)

ACC TOURNAMENT NOTES

• Virginia is the second seed in the ACC Tournament for only the second time, its highest since 2011. The only other time UVA was the No. 2 seed was Brian O’Connor’s first season as head coach in 2004.
• The Cavaliers have won the ACC Tournament three times, 1996, 2009 and most recently 2011.
• Virginia has been part of every ACC Tournament since its inception in 1973 and will make its 49th overall appearance. Only Virginia and Clemson have participated in every ACC Tournament.
• The Cavaliers own a 60-79 overall record in the ACC postseason.
• Under head coach Brian O’Connor, the Cavaliers have a record of 29-26 overall mark in the ACC Tournament.

AGAINST GEORGIA TECH

• Virginia closed the 2023 regular season with a three-game road sweep at Georgia Tech (30-26, 12-18) this past weekend. It was UVA’s first ACC road sweep since 2016.
• The Cavaliers took the final two games in come-from-behind fashion. In game two, UVA erased a 5-3 fifth inning deficit by scoring seven of the game’s final eight runs. Kyle Teel hit a go-ahead homer in the seventh inning.
• UVA played its seventh one-run game of the season and held on for an 8-7 win in the regular season finale.
• Virginia is 5-7 all-time against the Yellow Jackets in ACC Tournament action. It will be the first time UVA and Georgia Tech have squared off against each other in the ACC postseason since 2015, a 10-0, seven-inning UVA victory in Durham.
• Virginia has won five-straight games against Georgia Tech and haven’t won six-straight since a six-game stretch from 2004-2005.

AGAINST NORTH CAROLINA

• Virginia won the first two games of a three-game set in Chapel Hill earlier this season.
• UVA has won six of the last seven meetings against North Carolina.
• North Carolina (34-21, 14-14) is the only opponent that Virginia has played 300 games against. The all-time series dates back to 1891 with the Tar Heels holding a 188-119-4 advantage.
• The Tar Heels own an 10-8 edge all-time against the Cavaliers in the ACC Tournament. The two teams last met in the 2019 tourney, that was won 3-2 in 10 innings by UNC.
• The road series win against North Carolina earlier this season was the first since sweeping the Tar Heels in 2015.
• Head coach Brian O’Connor owns a 32-31 mark against North Carolina since taking over in 2004.

ON RECORD WATCH

• Ethan Anderson and/or Kyle Teel need one double to break UVA’s single season doubles record. Both are tied with Stephen Bruno (2012) and Dan Street (2002) with 23.
• Jake Gelof needs two RBI to tie UVA’s career RBI record, held by Steven Proscia (2009-11)

MOST CAREER RBI IN UVA HISTORY

• Gelof needs one home run to break UVA’s single-season home run record. He is the only Cavalier ever to produce two, 20-home run seasons. He tied Brian Buchanan’s 29-year-old record with his seventh multi home run effort of his career in the regular-season finale at Georgia Tech.

MOST HOME RUNS SINGLE SEASON IN UVA HISTORY

• Kyle Teel and Griff O’Ferrall co-lead the ACC with 91 hits and each need one hit to crack the program’s single season top-5. They are the first Cavalier duo with 90-plus hits in the same season.

MOST HITS IN A SINGLE SEASON IN UVA HISTORY

• Griff O’Ferrall and Ethan O’Donnell became the 13th and 14th Cavaliers to score 60 runs in a season, respectively. O’Ferrall’s 68 are tied for the second-most in a single season in UVA history.

MOST RUNS IN A SINGLE SEASON IN UVA HISTORY

SEEING DOUBLE

• Virginia leads the country with 149 doubles, 11 more than Georgia Tech and Arizona who have the second most in the nation.
• Ethan Anderson and Kyle Teel each have 23 doubles, the most in the ACC and tied for the ninth most in the country.
• For the first time in program history, the Cavaliers have three players with 20 or more doubles in a year – Anderson (23), Kyle Teel (23) and Jake Gelof (20).
• A total of 16 players in UVA history have recorded 20 or more doubles in a season.
• UVA has five players with 16 or more doubles, all ranking in the top-10 in the ACC.

MOST DOUBLES IN A SEASON – UVA HISTORY

*Jake Gelof has 20 doubles entering the weekend.

ON THE MOUND

• Wednesday’s starter, Nick Parker is slated to make his 53rd career start on the mound. His 52 career starts are tied for the second most of any active NCAA DI pitcher.

MOST CAREER STARTS (ACTIVE NCAA PITCHERS)

• The righthander has picked up a win in each of his last three starts. UVA is 10-2 this season in games in which he starts.
• Parker’s six wins this season matched his career-high of six last season at Coastal Carolina. He has a 19-9 career record and looking to become the second pitcher on the UVA staff with 20 career wins (Connelly Early – 21).
• In his outing against Louisville, he allowed one hit over his first five innings and didn’t allow a runner to reach second until the second. He left the game with the bases loaded, two of those runners eventually came around to score.
• The 12 strikeouts in his start against Duke were the most by a Cavalier pitcher in 2023 and the most since Brandon Neeck struck out 16 in the 2021 NCAA Columbia Regional.

THE STAFF AT A GLANCE

• The Cavalier pitching staff boasts the sixth-lowest team ERA (3.91) in the country and second lowest in the ACC.
• Of the 554 strikeouts (12th most in NCAA) recorded by Cavalier pitching, 185 have come looking, the most in the country.
• UVA has posted back-to-back 500-strikeout season under pitching coach Drew Dickinson. The Cavaliers broke the school record with 687 in 2021 and struck out 598 batters last season, the third-most in program history. The 554 strikeouts are already the 7th-most in a single season in program history.
• The Cavalier hurlers also boast college baseball’s 4th-best strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.22) and rank 8th in walks allowed per nine innings (3.19).

POTENT ATTACK

• The Cavaliers have scored 502 runs this season the sixth-most of any team in the nation and are averaging 9.1 runs per game, the seventh-most in the country and the most in the ACC.
• There are 29 players in D-I baseball batting over the .400 mark, two of them are in the Cavalier lineup – Kyle Teel (.414) and Griff O’Ferrall (.404). UVA is one of two schools with multiple players batting .400 (Sam Houston – 2).
• Virginia has struck out 349 times as a team this season, the fewest of any team in the ACC.
• Virginia has the fourth largest scoring/run differential in the country.

HIGHEST DI SCORING MARGIN/RUN DIFFERENTIAL