Coach Chris Pollard is new to Virginia baseball this season. He is no stranger, however, to the NCAA Tournament.
Pollard led Duke to four super regional berths in the past seven seasons — the final round before the College World Series. Yet none of those teams reached the CWS, even though they reached the final game of each series. Pollard hopes to change that in 2026 with the Cavaliers. Junior outfielder AJ Gracia — who followed Pollard from Duke — feels similarly.
“It was a pretty terrible feeling being that close [to the CWS] last year,” Gracia said at 2026 preseason media availability. “But I think it's just something to add hunger for us, honestly, being that close, you can kind of start to taste it.”
Gracia and Pollard were one game away from a CWS berth in 2025 before losing in the final match of a three-game series to underdog Murray State. With the chance to finally break though — against a mid-major, nonetheless — Pollard’s Blue Devils fell just short of Omaha again.
“That's the part I'm having a hard time with," Pollard said after being eliminated by the Racers. "We've won so many ball games over the years, big ball games ... must-win kind of ball games ... it's hard for me to reconcile why we haven't been able to do it in this particular type of game."
But he and his Blue Devils-turned-Cavaliers are not the only ones seeking postseason redemption — Virginia has some postseason demons of its own. The Cavaliers made consecutive CWS trips in 2023 and 2024 — going winless both times. Virginia has not won multiple CWS games in a season since it won the national title back in 2015.
“I think even for guys who were at Virginia and were on the Omaha team a couple years ago … you get there and you taste it and you want to be back,” Gracia said. “So everyone's still got that same hunger and have a common goal with, obviously, all the different backgrounds when you came here.”
Those different backgrounds Gracia mentioned are varied. Some of these Cavaliers are returners, others came from Duke, a few others transferred in from elsewhere. The nation’s eighth-best freshmen class caps off a talented roster.
“Yeah, it's definitely an interesting situation,” Gracia said. “I mean, it's funny. A couple months ago, we [Blue Devils] were trying to kill these [Virginia] guys a couple games, and then now we're all teammates.”
Fueled by diverse backgrounds and skillsets, this is a roster that features little continuity — but loads of potential. Gracia, a projected top-10 pick in the 2026 MLB Draft, comes with the most preseason hype for the Cavaliers since the great Kyle Teel in 2023.
But what about the competition? In short, the schedule is one with gradually increasing difficulty.
Virginia begins its season Friday with a weekend series against Wagner — the Cavaliers will not face a Power Four opponent in their first 13 games. Virginia’s first Power Four test does not come until a trip to face the Tar Heels in Chapel Hill, N.C., March 6. Starting with that series, the schedule becomes rather arduous for the Cavaliers.
"It's a unique situation where everyone's new,” junior infielder Eric Becker said. “But [hitting coach Eric Tyler] said it best in the beginning of the year, right, like new coaching staff, everyone made a decision to come back, to return, to stay committed. So again, I'm really confident in the group that we have, and I think we have a good shot.”
This season, the path to Omaha requires dispatching a slew of formidable ACC foes. Going by the preseason D1 Baseball Poll, Virginia has weekend series against No. 8 Louisville, No. 11 North Carolina, No. 16 Florida State, No. 19 Clemson and No. 21 Wake Forest.
Other ACC teams in the D1 Baseball Poll include No. 5 Georgia Tech and No. 22 Miami. The Cavaliers will avoid the Yellow Jackets and Hurricanes in the regular season but could face them in the ACC Tournament.
With a schedule of daunting ACC opponents, anything can happen, good or bad. After all, Virginia was ranked No. 2 before the 2025 season and ultimately missed the NCAA Tournament entirely — a collapse of epic proportions.
Still, the Cavaliers appear confident under new leadership that 2026 will be the year to end the campaign with a win, not a loss.
“I mean, the goal is always to make it to Omaha, right?” Becker said. “This team definitely has the talent to do so, and guys are super close.”
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