CHARLOTTESVILLE — Virginia was perfect in the Charlottesville Regional, and with an 8-3 win over East Carolina on Sunday, the Cavaliers are now headed to the Super Regionals.
The victory was UVA’s second in as many days over the Pirates. Virginia’s opponent in the Supers hasn’t been decided yet, with Duke and Coastal Carolina set to battle one more time Monday to decide the winner of the Conway Regional.
Virginia has been carried by its starting pitchers all tournament long — Sunday was no different. The continued dominance on the mound and a sudden surge of power in the final three innings cemented the victory.
“Really, really proud of our group,” coach Brian O’Connor said. “This is hard to do. You see across the country, teams that are highly successful here in the regular seasons, and sometimes they have a tough time winning a regional. I’m just proud of our guys that we, in every face of the game, we played at a very, very high level.”
Junior Connelly Early was on fire in his 6 1/3 innings pitched. The Army transfer tied his career-high by striking out 10 batters on a season-high 102 pitches. The performance was good enough for him to earn the regional’s Most Outstanding Player honor.
“The way Connelly Early attacked the mound tonight and ate up that game was really, really special,” O’Connor said.
Early only gave up one walk, seven hits and two earned runs. He said paying close attention to the Pirates’ offense in Saturday’s game prepared him.
“ECU is a great offensive team, there’s a reason why they were in the regional with us,” Early said. “… We knew they were going to have a really solid approach at the plate. I watched Nick (Parker) really closely as he went through his outing and watched video with Nick and (pitching coach Drew Dickinson) for Nick’s outing, so we had a plan going in with Coach Drew on how we wanted to attack these guys.”
For a while, it looked like the Virginia offense wasn’t going to be able to help Early.
The Wahoos got on the board in the first inning, thanks to an RBI ground-rule double from junior Kyle Teel, but that run was immediately answered in the bottom of the first by ECU.
Virginia only strung together three hits from the second to the sixth inning and left four runners stranded in that stretch.
The Cavaliers finally broke through in the top of the seventh, courtesy of a three-run home run from junior center fielder Ethan O’Donnell.
It was O’Donnell’s 13th home run of the year, but just his first hit of the regional.
Early was taken out in the seventh in favor of sophomore Jay Woolfolk, who threw one pitch, gave up a single and was taken out by O’Connor.
Freshman Evan Blanco relieved Woolfolk and got the Cavaliers out of a jam in the seventh.
Virginia’s offense kept the momentum rolling in the eighth inning thanks to another home run, this time from sophomore Anthony Stephan.
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Initially, it looked like Stephan’s three-run shot for a 7-2 lead was an inside-the-park home run — and the base runners certainly acted that way. Stephan nearly caught up to Casey Saucke on the base paths, and none of the East Carolina outfielders went after a ball that had appeared to bounce off the outfield wall.
Because the ball hit over the yellow line on the wall, the play was scored as a regular three-run home run.
After East Carolina cut the lead to 7-3 with an RBI single from junior Justin Wilcoxen, Teel virtually iced the game in the ninth with a solo shot that bounced high off the batter’s eye in center and extended Virginia’s lead to 8-3.
The announcement won’t be official until Tuesday, but Virginia will host the Super Regionals at “The Dish” (Disharoon Park).
“I’m ecstatic about (hosting),” O’Connor said. “… We earned the right to be right here in this stadium. We happen to feel like we play pretty darn well, whether we’re the home or visitors in our own stadium, we’ve got a pretty gosh-darn good record (here) this year. I’m excited there’s postseason baseball again here in Charlottesville next weekend.”
Michael Sauls, [email protected], (757) 803-5755
