Virginia has no answer for Duke pitching, falls in ACC semifinals

By Jerry Ratcliffe

After walloping Notre Dame to reach Saturday’s ACC Tournament quarterfinals, Virginia coach Brian O’Connor predicted UVA’s semifinals matchup with Duke would be a bloodbath between two of the hottest teams in the league.

As it turned out, the Cavaliers were the ones bloodied by an aggressive bunch of Blue Devils, and Virginia fell 4-2. Duke, on an 11-game winning streak, will advance to Sunday’s ACC championship game for the first time in program history.

Virginia, 29-23, will await Monday’s NCAA regional announcement (noon on ESPN2). The Cavaliers have been projected a No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament.

“We’ve got to be better to win a [regional] championship next weekend than we were today,” O’Connor said after the loss. “We just didn’t have guys rise up. [Duke] did. This time of year, everybody needs to play consistent, but you need certain guys to have big days and we didn’t do that.”

The Cavaliers ran into Blue Devils freshman hurler Luke Fox, who went a career-high seven innings and tamed UVA’s previously hot bats. Fox, 2-2, allowed eight hits and struck out seven Cavaliers as the lefty dominated Virginia’s batting order. Meanwhile, Duke centerfielder Joey Loperfido supplied plenty of firepower for the Blue Devils (XX). He went a career-high 4-for-5 at the plate, including two home runs, a double and two RBI.

Duke jumped to a 3-0 lead over the first three innings on three solo home runs, two by Loperfido, who led off the game with an opposite field blast, and then led off the third with another solo roundtripper to left field. Ethan Murray went back-to-back with Loperfido.

The Cavaliers climbed back into the game over the third and fourth innings when senior Alex Tappen hammered a 417-foot home run that hit the scoreboard in left field in the bottom of the third. Then, freshman Kyle Teel scored on Logan Michaels’ single, cutting Duke’s lead to 3-2 in the fourth.

Unfortunately for the Cavaliers, that was it for the day. After putting up 14 runs on Notre Dame the day before, Virginia couldn’t muster another threat the rest of the way.

Duke coach Chris Pollard knew his team has played well all season while holding the lead, and when the Blue Devils score first, they’ve been difficult to beat.

Still, Pollard realized that it would be a challenge to overcome Virginia’s pitching.

“You’re seeing arguably one of the best bullpens in the country,” Pollard said of UVA. “You’re talking about, in my opinion, the best pitching staff in the ACC, and they’re just loaded with veteran guys down there in the bullpen. We had to see Neeck, we had to see Whitten, we weren’t expecting to see Savino, but that group is really good, and you look at UVA as a staff, they’re really good at producing swing-and-miss. That’s a hallmark of that group this year.”

Virginia starter Mike Vasil (7-5) gave up the three solo homers.

O’Connor was impressed with Fox in the semifinal matchup.

“He didn’t walk anybody, and the poise for a freshman that he showed, we knew when he pitched against us at our place in relief that he had a good arm and his pitch ability was very good,” O’Connor said. “He rose to the occasion in a critical point, so you tip your cap to the kid. We just couldn’t get enough going offensively against him and he did a nice job of mixing his pitches and pitching in on our right-handed hitters.”

Fox had command of his fastball that can go up to 94 mph, and two off-speed pitches that silenced Virginia’s bats for the most part.

O’Connor believes that despite the lack of offense against Duke, his team is playing its best baseball of the season.

“The spirit of our team and the aggressiveness and the way that we’ve played the last two months is impressive, and I’m really proud of this group, that they were at a critical point and they made a decision that they were going to stand up and do what it took to flip it, and they certainly did that,” O’Connor said.

“I have got a great feeling. Today, I’m disappointed. We obviously wanted to win the game and have a chance at the championship [Sunday], so I’m disappointed in that. But that said, this team will be ready to go and play really great baseball next weekend.”