Virginia Baseball Recovers From Tough Weekend, Wins Home Opener

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Brian O’Connor didn’t sleep during the overnight red-eye flight back from Arizona late Sunday.

He’s not much for sleeping on planes to begin with, but an 0-and-3 start will keep coaches up at night. Sleep could wait. Getting his Virginia baseball team back on the winning track couldn’t.

O’Connor had accepted an invitation for his program to compete in the inaugural MLB4 Tournament, an ambitious start to a season for a young, largely inexperienced team. With a loaded field of ranked teams, including then-No. 1 Vanderbilt, No. 17 TCU, and No. 24 Cal State Fullerton, there was a risk the Cavaliers might just get bashed.

It was a gamble O’Connor felt was worth taking.

Offensively stacked Vandy used an eight-run third inning to propel itself to a 15-9 win over UVA, then the Cavaliers fell behind 7-0 to TCU and lost 9-4, followed by Sunday’s 6-5 setback to Cal State Fullerton after Virginia held a 5-3 lead going into the ninth inning.

If anything, it was likely the last game that was fresh in O’Connor’s mind once he boarded the plane, allowing one to get away.

Still, the trip could prove invaluable to the Cavaliers as the season progresses, lessons learned, experience against quality competition.

While UVA didn’t return to Charlottesville until around lunch time on Monday, the Cavaliers had to turn around and open their home season against VMI on Tuesday afternoon. The game was moved up a day due to expected inclement weather.

If there were any lingering effects of an 0-3 start out West, it wasn’t in evidence at Disharoon Park as Virginia routed the visiting Keydets 9-0.

It wasn’t the players O’Connor was worried about. They miss sleep all the time, are used to it. It was the coaches that brought his concern, flying through the night, getting battle ready once they hit the ground.

Looking back on the trip, it was all worth it.

“I told the team that the reason I chose to put them in that kind of tournament was that these are the kind of teams that you play at the end of the year when you’re trying to get to Omaha, and they’re the teams you play when you get to Omaha (site of the College World Series),” O’Connor said Tuesday night. “Right off the bat for them to see what this looks like.

“Most of the members of this team, other than a small handful, haven’t experienced the success of a really, really elite level of playing in a Super Regional, playing in Omaha,” O’Connor reminded. “Riley Wilson (a fifth-year reliever) is one of the guys left off the ‘15 team. They’ve got to see it, they’ve got to learn.”

The Cavaliers were national champions in 2015 but were knocked out early in both ‘16 and ‘17, then failed to reach postseason last year for the first time in O’Connor’s 15 seasons in Charlottesville.

Giving his team an early taste of what it will require to return to postseason, was necessary in O’Connor’s plan to kickstart this group of players. Being close to breaking through was something that wouldn’t leave his mind on the trek homeward.

“You’re thinking about that game and you’re in position to win it and didn’t do it,” O’Connor said. “So you take that pretty hard. We learn and move on.”

He believed the Cavaliers had opportunities early in the Cal State game. He talks to his team about stretching the lead and putting away an opponent when opportunities arise, and his team didn’t accomplish either.

Rattling around his brain were thoughts on what needed to be tweaked, what must he tell his players before the next game to help them get better.

Whatever it was, it must have resonated because the Cavaliers were opportunistic against VMI, a team that spoiled last year’s home opener.

First baseman Nate Eikhoff jumped all over Keydet starter Jonathan Clines with a two-out double down the left field line to fuel a four-run first inning. In the fifth, Crozet’s Tanner Morris doubled in the gap to score teammates Zack Gelof and Logan Michaels. Then Alex Tappen and Brendan Rivoli followed with back-to-back doubles.

Evan Sperling and Zach Messinger pitched the first seven innings before turning things over to Blake Bales and Chesdin Harrington as the staff combined to two-hit the Keydets.

It was a good way to put the weekend in perspective and kept O’Connor optimistic about what he had observed.

“I learned that [his players] are resilient,” he said. “We fell behind right away in the Vanderbilt game and we just kept charging back. Unfortunately we couldn’t hold them down. They have one of the best offensive clubs in the country and we just couldn’t stop them. But we kept fighting.

“TCU, we fell down and climbed back in it. After the first two losses we were still in position to win a game.”

Eikhoff, who went 1-for-3, and drove in three runs, believed the Cavaliers learned some lessons in Arizona that will help them build as the season progresses.

“The weekend was tough,” Eikhoff said. “It’s hard to go out there and lose three games, but for us we took it as a learning opportunity. We wanted to get [today’s] game in, get a win, and bounce back.

“If you look at the talent that was on the field for both teams (in Arizona), you can take positives from it,” Eikhoff said. “We saw that we had all the tools to be a really good team, a great team at that, that can win a lot of games. Putting runs together today helped us get the ‘W,’ and I think that will help us down the road.”

Down the road comes up quickly as Villanova comes to Disharoon for scheduled games Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, weather permitting.