The No. 12 Virginia baseball team entered Tuesday’s game against unranked Georgetown in desperate need of a strong pitching performance. Over the weekend, Cavalier pitchers gave away 34 walks to Florida State.
Virginia (14-8, 3-6 ACC) did indeed get the pitching performance it needed, but the offense could get nothing going as the Hoyas (9-10) won 1-0. It marks the second time the Cavaliers have been shutout this season. Prior to Tuesday, Virginia had not lost at home since Feb.28, 2012 against Liberty.
“Quite frankly, we’re getting it from all angles right now,” coach Brian O’Connor said. “Nothing’s coming easy for this ball club over the past couple weeks. We have to handle it like men, and we have to hang in there and keep trying to get better.”
Georgetown sophomore Simon Mathews started on the mound and proceeded to dominate the reconfigured Cavalier lineup. The Temple transfer retired all 15 batters he faced.
In the meantime, Virginia sophomore pitcher Alec Bettinger ran into trouble in the top half of the fourth. After recording a quick first out, he surrendered a 2-0 home run to senior first baseman A.C. Carter. The long ball appeared to rattle the right-hander — he loaded the bases on a single, a walk and a hit batsmen. With the Hoyas knocking on the door, Bettinger struck out freshman Michael DeRenzi to escape the inning.
“I missed my spot—missed over the middle of the plate,” Bettinger said. “He had a good swing on it, and it went out.”
Excluding his fourth-inning blemish, Bettinger handled the Hoya bats well. He left after five innings and yielded the lone run on four hits. Perhaps more importantly, the Woodbridge, Virginia native walked only two batters and fanned six.
But the excellence of Bettinger’s counterpart handed him the first loss of his career.
“It’s just one of those days,” Bettinger said. “One bad pitch can give you the loss, but I have to put that behind me and move on.”
Mathews left the contest after five perfect innings. On a staff day, coach Pete Wilk did not intend for his right hander to go longer than three innings, but Mathews’ excellence and efficiency kept him in the game longer—he threw only 49 pitches.
Several times the Cavaliers squared up on Mathews’s deliveries, but each time they were hit directly at a Hoya fielder.
“There were five or six balls that we hit right on the screws, but we didn’t have anything to show for it,” O’Connor said.
Virginia responded well to the new face. Junior Kevin Doherty, who started in right field but went to the mound in the sixth, singled off Georgetown’s senior reliever Will Brown with one out in the sixth to break up the Hoyas’ perfect game bid.
However, back-to-back groundouts ended the frame.
The Cavaliers’ second hit came with one out in the bottom of the eighth. Junior catcher Robbie Coman singled on a grounder behind second base. O’Connor then sent out senior Thomas Woodruff to pinch run for Coman. Woodruff used his wheels to swipe second base, but he could advance no further.
“The swings we were putting on the balls as a team were really strong,” Doherty said. “I thought that ultimately we were going to get to them and put up some runs.”
Virginia went without a whimper in the bottom of the ninth as Georgetown closer sent the Cavaliers down in order.
Once again, Doherty proved his worth as a two-way player. He had one of the team’s two hits, and he pitched the final four innings of the game.
Virginia has little time to reflect on their most recent loss. They travel to Lynchburg, Virginia Wednesday for an afternoon contest against Liberty. First pitch is scheduled for 3 p.m.
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