Baseball: No. 21 Virginia completes sweep of Louisville in home finale

Courtesy UVA Media Relations

No. 21 Virginia registered its third ACC sweep of the season with an 8-3 win over Louisville in the series finale on Sunday. Virginia finishes its home regular-season slate with a record of 32-4 at Disharoon Park, tied for the most regular-season home victories in program history.

It once again started on the mound for Virginia (41-11, 16-11 ACC), as starting pitcher Brian Edgington turned in six scoreless innings and fanned eight batters. He surrendered just two hits and allowed only one runner to reach second base. Beginning with the last out of the first inning, he retired 13-straight batters before giving up his only extra base hit of the afternoon, a leadoff double in the sixth. Edgington improved to 7-3 on the season, and is now tied for the staff lead with five quality starts.

For the weekend, Virginia starting pitchers Nick Parker, Connelly Early and Edgington combined to throw 18.1 innings, allowed three runs, struck out 19 and did not surrender a walk.

At the plate, Virginia was led by multi-RBI efforts from Ethan Anderson, Casey Saucke and Kyle Teel, who each drove in a pair of runs.

HOW IT HAPPENED

• Virginia scored three first inning runs after it sent eight batters to the plate. Jake Gelof recorded his 79th RBI of the season with a sacrifice fly to left field to plate UVA’s first run. Teel doubled to right to make it 2-0 and Saucke capped the inning off with a two-out, RBI single to right that allowed Teel to score.
• Colin Tuft and Griff O’Ferrall started the second inning off with back-to-back singles and came around to score on a sacrifice fly from Teel and an RBI single by Anderson, respectively.
• Virginia had an 8-0 lead after six frames after a run in the fourth and two more in the sixth.
• After the Cardinals (29-22, 9-18) posted three runs in the seventh inning, relievers Jack O’Connor and Jay Woolfolk managed to keep Louisville off the scoreboard over the final two frames to seal the victory.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

• Virginia has won 15-straight home series coming out of exam break and own a 51-25 mark against ACC foes after exams since 2009.
• Teel recorded his 22nd double of the season, tied for the fourth-most in a single season in program history. He is one double shy of matching UVA’s single season record held by teammate Ethan Anderson (2023), Stephen Bruno (2012) and Dan Street (2002).
• UVA is outscoring opponents 71-31 in the first inning and is 22-5 when scoring a run in its first turn at the plate.
• Anderson extended his hit streak to 11 games with his RBI single in the second inning, the longest active streak on the team.
• Virginia swept Louisville for the first time in eight total series against the Cardinals. UVA is 12-13 against the Cardinals in a an all-time series that was first played in 2015.
• The Cavaliers closed out its season-long, 11-game home stand with a 9-2 record.
• Prior to the game, Virginia honored its nine graduate students and seniors (Chris Baker, Tommy Courtney, Brian Edgington, Jacob Hodorovich, Avery Mabe, Nick Parker and Travis Reifsnider along with student managers Colin Davis and Matt Pezolt) in a pregame ceremony.

UP NEXT

Virginia will play its final three games of the regular season beginning Thursday, when the Cavaliers open up a three-game series at Georgia Tech. First pitch on Thursday and Friday is scheduled for 6 p.m. while the regular season finale will take place at 1 p.m. on Saturday.