After losing eight of nine games in the Red and Black Tournament and Cavalier Classic, the Virginia softball team has an opportunity to win three games in a row for the second time this season with a doubleheader Wednesday against Longwood University.
The Cavaliers (9-23, 4-5 ACC) have struggled to find a regular level of performance. The team won four of its past seven games; however, the three losses in that span were each by a margin of at least five runs.
Coming off of an 8-7 victory against N.C. State March 30, the Cavaliers will look to continue gaining momentum against the Lancers (19-12) in Farmville, Va. Though the Lancers have a winning record, they are 0-2 against ACC opponents this season, having dropped both games of a March 26 doubleheader against North Carolina.
"Longwood's always tough," senior outfielder and captain Meghan O'Leary said. "They always come ... raring to get at us."
Virginia's last doubleheader, a March 29 split against the Wolfpack, showed two extremes of the Cavaliers' performance. After shutting out N.C. State 4-0 in the first game, the Cavaliers mustered only one hit in a 0-5 loss in the second game. They will look to perform less erratically Wednesday.
A key factor to finding stability will be tempering Longwood's potent offense. The Lancers feature four starters hitting at least .320, including one, senior Ryan Washington, batting .410.
"We know they're athletic and will come out and hit," freshman catcher Alison Pittman said. "I definitely think we need to take [Sunday's] win and come out and play Longwood tough."
Longwood also has a statistical edge in pitching. Though the Lancers' 3.84 ERA so far this season is not outstanding compared to the NCAA average, it is still much stronger than the Cavaliers' 6.51 ERA. Perhaps more importantly, opponents' pitchers have a 3.88 ERA against Longwood hitters, while Virginia's opponents have kept their ERA down at 3.48 earned runs per game.
The Lancers are the last opponent for Virginia before the Cavaliers go to Blacksburg to face Virginia Tech in a pivotal conference series.
"This is a great team to see mid-week," O'Leary said. "Coming into next weekend, Virginia Tech is a great team ... It's great that we have good competition mid-week so that we can ... not drop down a level."
Virginia is in the middle of a late-season stretch that features mostly conference opponents. Longwood is one of three non-conference opponents remaining for the Cavaliers before the ACC Tournament May 8 to 11. The Cavaliers currently sit in fourth in the eight-team ACC.
Regardless of Wednesday's outcome, the Cavaliers are on track for a better performance than last season's. The Cavaliers only won three series in the 2007 season but already have won three series in 2008 and need only six more victories to match last season's win total.
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