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UVA to face Georgia Tech in ACC Tournament play-in game

uva-baseballThe UVA baseball team opens postseason play at 11 a.m. Tuesday when it faces Georgia Tech is a play-in game at the 2015 ACC Baseball Championship at Durham Bulls Athletic Park in Durham, N.C. Virginia (33-19) is seeded No. 7 in the field, while Georgia Tech (32-22) is the No. 10 seed. The winner of the game advances into the pool-play portion of the tournament, which begins Wednesday.

The UVa-Georgia Tech winner is slated to face No. 2 seed Miami at 3 p.m. Wednesday, No. 3 seed Notre Dame at 11 a.m. Friday and No. 6 seed NC State at 7 p.m. Saturday.

Broadcast Information
Every game of the tournament through Saturday will air on the ACC’s Regional Sports Networks (Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic in the Charlottesville area). The games also will stream online on ESPN3. The championship game on Sunday will air on ESPN2. UVa’s live radio broadcasts are available on VirginiaSports.com through a Cavaliers Live subscription. A link to live statistics also can be found on VirginiaSports.com.

WINA 1070-AM and WINA.com will have the live local radio broadcast for all postseason games. The ACC tournament games will air across select stations on the Virginia Sports Radio Network:

Charlottesville – WINA 1070 AM
Martinsville – WHEE 1370 AM
Staunton – WTON 94.3 FM

Odds and Ends
• Josh Sborz will start the Tuesday play-in game against Georgia Tech.
• Virginia is No. 19 in the latest NCAA RPI.
• UVa is 12-5 since Joe McCarthy returned to the lineup on April 15.
• Since Nathan Kirby went down on April 17, UVa’s weekend starting pitchers are 3-1 with a 2.86 ERA and averaging 6 1/3 IP per start.
• UVa catchers have thrown out 38 percent of potenial base stealers (third in ACC).
• UVa played 21 home games this year (fewest since 1984).

Virginia at the ACC Baseball Championship
Virginia has won three ACC tournament titles (1996, 2009, 2011), with each coming in Durham at DBAP. UVa now has played in each of the 42 ACC tournaments. Virginia is 54-67 all-time at the ACC Baseball Championship. Under Brian O’Connor (since 2004), Virginia is 23-13 in the tournament. UVa is 16-10 all-time at ACC tournament games in Durham. The Cavaliers are 6-10 all-time as the No. 7 seed; UVa reached the 2005 ACC Championship game as the 7-seed.

Cavaliers Against Pool Opponents
Virginia went 7-5 this season against the other members of its pool. UVa’s all-time, 2015 and ACC tourney history against its pool opponents:

Opponent: All-Time/2015/ACC Tourney History (Last Mtg.)
Georgia Tech: 50-70-2/1-2 @ GT/4-7 (2013, UVa 8-2)
Notre Dame: 6-2/3-0 @ ND/0-0
Miami: 24-22/2-1 vs UM/2-1 (2011, UVa 6-4)
NC State: 72-114-1/1-2 @ NCSU/9-15 (2007, UVa 6-1)
Cavaliers Hit Refresh Button at Exam Break
Virginia is 6-1 and has won five straight games since returning from a nine-day break for final exams. UVa is batting .292 as a team and has committed just three errors (.989) in that span (.273 batting average and .967 fielding percentage in previous 45 games). Cavalier pitchers averaged 4.4 walks per nine innings in the first 45 games, but that has dropped to 3.2 in the seven games since the break.

Up Next
The selection show for the NCAA tournament is set for Memorial Day at noon on ESPNU.

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