Cavs look for a strong finish

By Jeff White Media General News Service
Published: May 15, 2008

CHARLOTTESVILLE — In May 2005, back-to-back losses to ACC rival Miami left the University of Virginia baseball team with a 32-15 record and dealt a blow to its hopes of advancing to the NCAA tournament.
But the Cavaliers went 6-0 over the rest of the regular season and then won three games in the ACC tournament before losing in the final — a surge that earned them an invitation to the NCAAs.
Another strong finish this month might be necessary for Virginia to be assured a fifth straight trip to the NCAA tournament. U.Va. (14-13, 35-17) closes the regular season with a three-game series against ACC rival Georgia Tech (14-13, 36-15), starting tonight at Davenport Field.
“This is a very similar situation [to 2005],” Brian O’Connor, Virginia’s fifth-year coach, said yesterday.
Eight teams advance to the ACC tournament, which starts Wednesday in Jacksonville, Fla. The No. 5 seed will go to the winner of the Virginia-Georgia Tech series.
In the ACC tourney, each team is guaranteed at least three games. That gives the Cavaliers a minimum of six games with which to impress the NCAA selection committee. That group places particular importance on how a team fares in its final 10 games before the NCAAs.
“This team will be remembered on how we finish here,” O’Connor said. “Because we have so many young players that have never been in this situation before, I’m excited to see how they respond.”
The Cavaliers don’t have a marquee out-of-conference victory, and they’ve struggled against the ACC’s best this season. Virginia’s combined record versus Miami, North Carolina, Florida State and N.C. State is 2-10, though four losses were by a single run. The first of those two wins came March 8 against N.C. State. The second came Sunday in a rain-shortened game against second-ranked UNC at Davenport Field.
“We would rather have had a nine-inning victory,” O’Connor said, “but a win’s a win. I do feel like we earned that victory, and it’s going to mean a lot.”
Virginia made the projected 64-team field for the NCAA tournament that Baseball America released yesterday. Sean Ryan, an editor at Richmond-based CollegeBaseballInsider.com, also likes the Cavaliers’ position.
“I think if the season ended today, they’d be in,” Ryan said yesterday. “What they need to do is not fall flat on their faces [against Georgia Tech and in the ACC tourney].”
The Wahoos and the Yellow Jackets are scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. today and tomorrow and at 1 p.m. Saturday.
“How we do against Georgia Tech and how we do in the ACC tournament,” O’Connor said, “is going to determine this team’s fate. ... If we do not do the job in those six games — it doesn’t mean winning all of them, but win our share of those games — we could not like the news on NCAA selection day.”
Jeff White is a staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.