UVA’s bats fail again as Notre Dame eliminates Cavaliers from ACC Championships

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Virginia was shut out for the first time in more than a year on Friday, ending the Cavaliers’ ACC Championships bid in Charlotte, but Brian O’Connor believes his team can bounce back for next week’s NCAA Tournament.

Fifth-seeded UVA (38-17) managed five hits against five Notre Dame pitchers in a 3-0 loss to the fourth-seeded Irish (35-13). The Cavaliers hadn’t been blanked since March of 2021 at Florida State, a 109-game span.

O’Connor’s team heads into the postseason having lost four of its last five games and has struggled at the plate after having been one of the most offensively productive squads in the country. The Virginia skipper is less than satisfied with that effort of late.

“Our approach [at the plate] needs to be better,” O’Connor said Friday. “It needs to be better than it was this week, that’s for sure. There were certainly guys that were ready to play today and gave themselves a chance to be competitive.

“There are guys that weren’t, and we need everybody in the lineup to be ready to go. It’s the minute details at this level when you’re playing great opponents, so you get exposed if you’re not ready to go.”

One of the Cavaliers who was ready to play was Alex Tappen, who had three hits and was 4 for 8 in the two Charlotte games (UVA lost 13-3 to Florida State on Wednesday). Nate Savino was another, pitching into the fifth inning for the 10th time in 13 starts this season. He struck out five and gave up two runs to Notre Dame in 4.2 innings.

Virginia must now wait until Monday’s NCAA Tournament selection show (noon, ESPN2) to learn its postseason fate. The tournament’s 16 regional host sites will be announced Sunday night on NCAA.com.

While the Cavaliers may have gone 0-2 in Charlotte, O’Connor said he’s confident his team can turn things around next week, wherever they play. Afterall, Virginia’s last three trips to the College World Series came after the Wahoos were a combined 4-6 in the ACC Tournament.

“We’ve had teams in our past here that have made the journey to Omaha that have not had success in this [ACC] tournament,” O’Connor said. “Every team that’s in this [ACC], I believe has an opportunity to play next weekend and that’s because there’s high-quality teams in this league.”

The Virginia coach used Friday’s game as just one example, pointing out that Notre Dame pitcher Liam Simon was throwing at 99 miles per hour in the game. O’Connor said his team can learn from the experience in order to prepare for next week, and hopes the NCAA committee will consider UVA’s entire body of work from this season.

“What we have done over the year, we put ourselves in a great position come Monday,” O’Connor said. “These two ball games is not what we wanted to do, so whatever the committee decides, that is our journey. We’ll take that and look forward to that opportunity that we have next weekend.”

UVA hoped to host a regional, but that will be determined by the NCAA committee. Either way, O’Connor said his team will be ready for the challenge if it is sent on the road. Last year, the Cavaliers played in a regional and super regional in Columbia, S.C., before advancing to Omaha.

“The committee has a lot of difficult decisions to make, but I don’t look at [hosting] as any kind of big advantage,” the coach said. “We’ve proven in our history that three of the five times we’ve been to Omaha, we’ve been on the road [in regionals]. That’s against the percentages and I know the percentages over the past two decades is that you have a 75-percent chance of advancing if you’re playing at home, and with that said, we beat those odds three out of the five times.

“The nice thing about playing at home is that it’s a tremendous reward for your fans. We’ve had some incredible crowds this year. I think it’s a great environment for college baseball. We’ll deal with whatever the committee ultimately decides, and if that’s home, great. If it’s not and we go on the road, hey, no big deal. That was the journey we had last year.”

Box Score

ADDITIONAL NOTES

Courtesy UVA Media Relations

• The Cavaliers own a 54-80 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.
• Virginia is 2-2 against Notre Dame in the ACC Tournament.
• Over the last two ACC Tournaments, Tappen is 8 for 16 with two homers and three RBI.