Back in February, conference series against Florida State, Miami and North Carolina loomed large on a young and largely inexperienced Cavaliers’ schedule. Unranked, Virginia was picked to finish fifth in the ACC Coastal Division in what appeared to be a rebuilding year.
What a difference one month can make.
Though the Cavaliers dropped two of their three games against host North Carolina this weekend, the squad finds itself ranked in the nation’s top ten and with a solid 6-4 conference record heading into what should prove to be an easier stretch of its schedule.
“There’s no question about the character and the pride on this team, and how they handle adversity,” Virginia coach Brian O’Connor said. “We’ve just got to find a way to be just a little bit better. We’re right there.”
Although the squad only managed to pick up one win Saturday, Virginia nearly took the series away from the collegiate baseball heavyweight Tar Heels in Sunday’s rubber match, which saw both squads get off to quick starts.
The Cavaliers kicked off a wild first inning as sophomore rightfielder Dan Grovatt notched his first two RBIs of the series with a hard-hit double down the left field line, knocking in sophomore centerfielder Jarrett Parker and sophomore second baseman Phil Gosselin.
Virginia freshman starter Will Roberts got off to a shaky start, allowing as many Tar Heel hits in the first inning alone as North Carolina managed through eight innings Saturday. North Carolina senior rightfielder Garrett Gore, after reaching on a dribbler up the middle, scored on a double by junior third baseman Kyle Seager. The hit by the junior extended his hitting streak to 16 straight games and kept the Tar Heels, down 2-1, within striking distance.
Although Virginia failed to capitalize on a bases-loaded opportunity in the second inning as first baseman Danny Hultzen flied out to left to continue his recent struggles at the plate — the freshman went one for 13 during the weekend with five strikeouts — the Cavaliers continued attacking Tar Heel sophomore starter Matt Harvey in the third. Harvey walked Grovatt to lead off the inning, and after freshman third baseman Steven Proscia reached on a hit, Harvey filled the bases for the second time, delivering his fourth walk of his short outing to junior shortstop Tyler Cannon. Harvey was then replaced by junior lefthander Brian Moran, who came through for North Carolina in the no-outs, bases-loaded situation. The lefty allowed just one Cavalier run to score on a sacrifice fly from freshman designated hitter John Hicks.
The lead was not large enough for Virginia, however, as Roberts continued to labor on the mound. The Tar Heels, fueled by a pair of triples from secondbaseman Levi Michael and catcher Mark Fleury, evened the score at three runs apiece after three innings. Michael’s knock down the left field line to score junior first baseman Dustin Ackley marked his second hit en route to going a perfect four-for-four on the day.
After walking the first Tar Heel batter of the fourth inning, Roberts was replaced by junior reliever Neal Davis; the rookie exited the game having giving up three earned runs on six Tar Heel hits. Although Davis managed a quick three outs to escape the inning with no more damage, the lefty struggled in the fifth and the Tar Heels took full advantage of Davis’ lack of control. North Carolina got three hits to lead off the inning, including a two-run home run from third baseman Kyle Seager, to take a 5-3 edge.
Although Virginia relievers sophomore Tyler Wilson, freshman Sean Lucas, freshman Shane Halley and junior Matt Packer combined to stifle the Tar Heel offense through the sixth, seventh and eight frames, Moran also continued to put together an impressive relief outing for North Carolina. Never having gone more than three innings before, Moran shut down the Cavalier lineup — which mustered only two hits in the next three innings.
“He’s their main guy out of the bullpen — a big lefty,” O’Connor said. “He’s got a lot of experience; he did a great job for them last year. He’s tough – he’s tough to pick up the ball off of. After four innings or so, we started to figure him out a little bit, just not enough in the middle innings when it counted.”
It was not until the ninth that Virginia finally broke through. With one out, Hultzen picked a good time for Virginia to notch his first hit of the series, reaching first on an infield grounder. Grovatt rebounded from a lackluster series against Miami — in which he struck out twice in clutch bottom of the ninth situations — to hit a home run to right, evening the score at 5-5 and giving the Cavaliers hope of winning the series after trailing for four innings in the decisive third game.
“Coach talked to me,” Grovatt said. “He said, ‘You’re getting a little long on your swing, maybe take a day and refocus.’”
Last year’s College World Series runner-up refused to settle for going to extra innings, however, as Ackley led off the inning with a walk and Michael followed with a single. After intentionally walking the bases loaded with one out in the hope of a inducing a double-play ball, Packer instead hit Fleury with a pitch, allowing Ackley to come home for the winning, walk-off run.
“I was hoping that we might be able to get in on Graepel a little bit, and get a groundball, and have a chance to get out of it,” O’Connor said. “That’s tough. When you’re on the road and you’re the visiting team, and you’ve got runners on second and third, one out, that’s not an easy situation to pitch in.”
While Sunday’s late-game loss against the Tar Heels was disappointing for the Cavaliers, Friday’s tight 4-3 defeat was just as crushing.
Bolstered by a lead-off, first pitch home run from Parker and a solid outing by Hultzen — who went seven innings while only giving up two Tar Heel runs on six hits in an impressive 118-pitch performance — the Cavaliers managed to take a 3-2 lead in the top of the eighth on a RBI double by Gosselin to score Parker from first. The Tar Heels, just like Sunday, however, had an immediate answer, as junior centerfielder Michael Cavasinni hit his longest ball of the season — a triple just over a drawn-in John Barr in left field — to score two North Carolina runs and hand the Cavaliers their third straight conference loss.
North Carolina coach Mike Fox “told me [after the game] that, ‘I think that’s the farthest the kid’s hit the ball in his career,’” O’Connor said after Friday’s loss. “We had our outfield really shallowed in, taking a chance that we didn’t want a hit to drop in the outfield, and he got it good. That’s baseball, and you reward a kid for stepping up in the clutch like that.”
Virginia’s one dominant performance of the weekend came Saturday, when senior righty Andrew Carraway toed the mound for the Cavaliers and turned in another strong performance to improve his record to a perfect 4-0 this season.
Both Carraway and Tar Heel senior starter Adam Warren managed to shut down both sides’ starting lineups in the early going, but the Cavaliers finally broke through. In the fifth, Cannon — who led off the inning with a single — scored on a RBI single by sophomore second baseman Corey Hunt, and Parker hit a sacrifice fly to left to knock in catcher John Hicks. Proscia followed with a two-run homer in the sixth, and Parker hit his second long ball of the series to give the Cavaliers an insurmountable four-run lead.
“It’s the first kind of club that we’ve had here that we can put pressure on teams by running and playing that style, but we can also drive the ball out of the ballpark when we need to,” O’Connor said. “We’re not one of these teams that’s gonna hit 70 or 80 home runs, it’s significantly more power than we’ve had in the past.”
Carraway allowed just one run on three hits in seven innings of work, and though Gore hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth against Packer, the closer struck out Fleury and forced a Graepel grounder to end the game.
After the series against the Tar Heels, the Cavaliers now find themselves heading into a comparatively easier stretch of play. Following mid-week matchups against non-conference foes Norfolk State and Radford, Virginia will host Maryland in a three-game series next weekend.
“We’re right there,” Grovatt said. “We just need to finish the game. I feel like we’re with everybody, we’re playing with everybody, it’s just we’re one more hit away or maybe one more big pitch away, and then we’ll be fine.”
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