There is perhaps nothing more frustrating than watching a team with unbelievable potential fail to achieve its goal time and time again. For the past few weeks, this is what fans have experienced watching the Virginia baseball team.
With almost a third of the roster filled by freshman, most of them highly scouted and incredibly talented, Virginia has been a team full of potential. However, from suffering a surprise sweep at the hands of Wake Forest to losing two games in extra innings to North Carolina, Virginia has consistently missed living up to this potential. Until this weekend, that is.
This weekend Virginia (29-13, 9-10 ACC) swept No. 4 Georgia Tech (30-10, 16-5 ACC). This gives the Cavaliers a chance to get back on track in the ACC and work their way up the conference standings before the ACC championship.
"I really felt like, at some point in the next couple of weekends, we needed to do something like this -- sweep a Georgia Tech, or take two out of three, or go down and take two out of three at Florida State," Virginia coach Brian O'Connor said. "Half of the players in our dugout are new to this program, they needed to learn that this is possible, that you can compete with the best teams in the country, and I hope that this carries us on through the rest of the ACC season."
Virginia had already taken an early lead in the first game in the series on Friday when the game was called in the top of the fourth inning because of rain. It was decided that the game would continue Saturday, starting at the bottom of the fourth where the game had been left off.
Restarting a game in the middle of the fourth inning left Virginia in an odd spot with regards to pitching. Matt Avery started the first part of game one on Friday, and then, after the rain delay, Jeff Kamrath started the second half on Saturday. This led to freshman Robert Poutier pitching his first ACC start in the third game of the series in place of Kamrath, who usually pitches Sundays.
"I made the decision on Friday night after the rain that we were going to go for game one, and I wanted to go with Jeff Kamrath," O'Connor said. "I did that because I had confidence in Robert Poutier."
The decision paid off. The Cavaliers capitalized on their early lead Friday to finish the game off Saturday 4-2 and then top that off with a 9-2 victory later that night.
"There's a lot of things that lead to success in college baseball," O'Connor said. "But if you have pitching depth, you're going to have a chance to win a lot of games, and that's what we're building here. A lot of these kids are young but have great arms, and they have a lot of talent and they showed that today."
In contrast to Saturday's games, in which Virginia took a lead early on and held it, Sunday's game stayed close the whole way through. Virginia took an early one-run lead in the second after Brandon Guyer got to second on a barely-fair ball down the third base line, then got home on an out-of-play double by Scott Headd. Virginia held its lead for a solid three innings before Georgia Tech's Andy Hawranick, who had walked to first and advanced to third on a single by Mike Trapani, finally scored on a single hit by Danny Payne. The tie lasted for half an inning before Headd, who had singled and then gotten to second on a sac bunt by Mike Campagna, got home on a single hit down the left field line by Kyle Werman. It ended up being the game-winning run.
This weekend's series highlighted each of Virginia's strengths and overcame each of its weakness. Particularly the team's relative inexperience, which has been both an advantage and a drawback for Virginia, turned in its favor. From Poutier andSean Doolittle's superb pitching to Guyer's two doubles, Virginia, and especially it's freshman, used this series to really live up to the promise fans have been expecting all season.
"We have such a young team this year," junior Ryan Zimmerman said. "It's very different from last year. I think we knew it was going to be bumpy at first, but they're not freshmen anymore, as you can tell. We just needed a series like this to get over the hump. The young guys know what it feels like now, and I think we're just going to roll with it."
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