0Chase Hungate and the Virginia baseball team celebrated a NCAA Tournament win Friday. ~ Photo by Kris Wright/TheSabre.com
As Brian O’Connor walked off the field Friday, he shared a quick sigh of relief with his right hand man for the past 21 seasons Virginia associate head coach Kevin McMullan.
“Coach Mac and I said to each other after the game ‘Boy it’s been a while since we’ve had a game like today,” O’Connor said laughing.
In this case, a game like that meant a 4-2 win against Penn as Virginia opened up a Charlottesville Regional with a victory for the 10th straight time. A rather unconventional win for the Cavaliers this season, scoring fewer than 5 runs for the first time since late April. But Penn ace Cole Zaffiro held one of the nation’s top offenses at bay with only 3 earned runs on 4 hits.
“Sure would you like to be up 8 runs, yeah you would,” O’Connor said. “But when you’re in a tight ball game it gives them the opportunity to bring something special.”
The something special came in the form of the Cavaliers’ pitching staff, namely starter Joe Savino and reliever Chase Hungate. The two combined to only allowed 2 runs on 4 hits and also saved the UVA bullpen for a busy regional weekend ahead.
“I can’t stop smiling,” Savino said. “This place is amazing, the crowd, the atmosphere, everything about it is amazing.”
Pitching in his first ever NCAA Regional, Savino looked every bit the veteran despite the lack of experience. The Elon transfer pitched a season-high 5.2 innings on 97 pitches with 8 strikeouts.
“He pitched today like a grad transfer,” Penn head coach John Kurkow said. “A lot of poise, threw a ton of strikes and really took advantage of locating his fastball away early.”
Savino looked at ease his first time through the Penn lineup, going nine up and nine down. He also benefited from some early run support via a 3-run home run by Henry Godbout in the second inning. In the fourth though, Savino experienced his first bump in the road with Penn scoring 2 runs, but rebounded to reach the all important five-inning threshold for UVA pitchers this season.
That included a 1-2-3 fifth when Savino responded with a big inning. The Quakers followed up their 2-run fourth inning by getting out of a bases loaded situation unscathed in the bottom half of the frame. With momentum potentially bubbling, Savino got a flyout and back-to-back strikeouts on just 9 pitches to quickly quiet those thoughts.
“I just wanted to make sure I executed one pitch at a time,” Savino said of his day on the mound. “Let the execution of it pay off.”
A year ago, Savino watched former Elon teammate Brian Edgington pitch in a similar situation for the Cavaliers as he guided the team to a regional opening win over Army. Savino says the experience Edgington had in a Virginia uniform and the stories his former teammate told him are exactly why he ended up choosing to come to Charlottesville.
“He said it’s everything that I could have ever wanted and it’s certainly lived up to it,” Savino said. “It’s everything I ever could have wanted and that I thought college baseball is and even more.”
Reaching this moment, though, was an uphill battle. Savino missed the first two and a half months of the season with elbow soreness. O’Connor says the team took a slow approach to work Savino back with postseason baseball specifically on the mind.
“We made it really intentional with the comeback and process being ready for times like this at the later end of the year to hopefully put us in a position to win on our way to Omaha,” Savino said.
The return of Savino provided a boost for a pitching staff that struggled out of the gates this season. He’s now 3-2 on the season with a 3.18 ERA over 28.1 innings. He’s posted 23 strikeouts and 10 walks.
After ranking in the top 10 nationally for ERA in two of the last three seasons, Virginia dipped to seventh in the ACC. O’Connor and pitching coach Drew Dickinson have had to remake the starting rotation several times throughout the season after season-ending injuries to Bradley Hodges and Jack O’Connor.
“You don’t like that you don’t have everybody at your disposal, but I love the challenge of trying to figure it out,” O’Connor said.
An up-and-down bullpen has also spelled trouble for the Cavaliers this season, but Hungate has remained one of the more reliable relievers. The former VCU transfer gave Penn batters trouble in 3.1 innings, only allowing 1 hit and keeping 0’s on the scoreboard.
“I think you just got to take one pitch and one batter at a time and just execute one pitch and let the defense do the work,” Hungate said.
O’Connor said he expects Hungate to still be available latter in the weekend even after the long outing because he only threw an efficient 31 pitches. That means the Hoos’ full bullpen is available to them as they move into the winner’s bracket of the double elimination format. Virginia awaits the winner of Mississippi State and St. John’s for its next game, scheduled for 6 p.m. on Saturday.
One question the Cavaliers will take away from the win is will the bats bounce back this weekend. UVA’s dynamic offense has only been held to fewer than 5 runs 10 times this season. Missed opportunities were the key theme on Friday with 10 runners left on base. That included a 2-13 day at the plate (.154) with runners in scoring position.
But O’Connor thought the game showed the Cavaliers could win those low-scoring bouts as well when margin for error is small in the postseason. He referenced Bobby Whalen’s first step to make two crucial plays in center field or several pitches Savino and Hungate made in big moments as key plays in the winning effort.
These types of games, after all, are the reason O’Connor coaches college baseball.
“As a manager you love those tight games because there’s decisions that come into play, that you all question and that’s great, that’s your job,” O’Connor said. “My job is to look forward to making those decisions. I don’t shy away from it at all."
2 Comments