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#1 UVa. baseball concludes regular season at Wake Forest

uva-logo-new2The top-ranked UVa. baseball team finishes regular-season play Thursday through Saturday (May 15-17) with a three-game ACC series at Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The series consists of 6 p.m. games Thursday and Friday and the 2 p.m. finale Saturday at Wake Forest Baseball Park.

VIRGINIA CAVALIERS (42-9, 21-6 ACC)
Probable Starting Rotation
Thu. – Sr. RHP Artie Lewicki (4-1, 1.62 ERA)
Fri. – So. LHP Nathan Kirby (8-1, 1.62 ERA)
Sat. – So. LHP Brandon Waddell (6-2, 2.75 ERA)

WAKE FOREST DEMON DEACONS (28-22, 13-14 ACC)
Probable Starting Rotation
Thu. – R-So. RHP Aaron Fossas (5-1, 3.79 ERA)
Fri. – Sr. RHP Jack Fischer (4-6, 3.55 ERA)
Sat. – Jr. RHP Conner Kaden (2-3, 3.83 ERA)

Virginia in the Latest National Rankings
Baseball America, Perfect Game, USA Today Coaches – 1
Collegiate Baseball, NCBWA – 2

Broadcast Information
Links to live video broadcasts for all three games, provided by Wake Forest, will be available on VirginiaSports.com. There is a subscription fee required.

WINA 1070-AM and WINA.com will carry the live radio broadcast of all three games. The Virginia audio broadcasts will be available through a Cavaliers Live subscription, will be available on VirginiaSports.com.

The Saturday game also will air across several stations along the Virginia Sports Radio Network: 910-AM (Richmond), 1340-AM (Petersburg), 97.9 FM (Lynchburg), 94.3 FM (Staunton) and 1370 AM (Martinsville).

Live statistics (GameTracker) will be located on VirginiaSports.com. The audio and live stats also can be accessed through the Virginia Sports app, which is available through iTunes.

Odds and Ends
Virginia joins Florida State and North Carolina as the only ACC schools to record at least nine 40-win seasons in the last 11 years.
• UVa batters own more walks (231) than strikeouts (230) in 2014.
• Twenty-two of the Cavaliers’ 42 wins have come when scoring five runs or fewer.
• Nick Howard needs two saves to tie the ACC single-season record.
• UVa has won 11 straight ACC series (dating to 2013).

Virginia-Wake Forest Series
Wake Forest holds an 84-77 edge in the series with Virginia. UVa is playing a series in Winston-Salem for the second straight year after going four years without playing there.

After sweeping Wake Forest last year at Gene Hooks Field, the Cavaliers have won 10 straight contests against the Demon Deacons, including six in a row in Winston-Salem. UVa’s last loss to Wake came on May 24, 2008, in the ACC tournament.

Playing It Close to the Vest
Virginia has played plenty of games down to the wire. UVa is 13-3 in one-run games, marking the second-most one-run victories during the O’Connor tenure (14 in 2004). The Cavaliers are 22-4 in games decided by three runs or fewer. UVa also is 5-0 in extra-inning affairs.

Thirteen of the Cavaliers’ 27 ACC games have been decided by one run, including all three of the contests at Duke; UVa is 11-2 in those games.

ACC Schedule Comes To a Close
Entering the final weekend of ACC play, UVa owns a 21-6 conference mark. The 21 ACC wins is tied for the fourth most in program history with the 2006 team. UVa posted 23 wins in 2010 and 22 in 2011 and 2013. The ACC record for conference wins is 24, set four times previously.

Chasing First Division Title Since 2011
Virginia is aiming for its first ACC Coastal Division championship since 2011. The Cavaliers trail Miami by one game in the division standings; UM plays host to North Carolina this weekend.

By virtue of its series win in Coral Gables in March, Virginia owns the head-to-head tiebreaker against the Hurricanes. UVa earned Coastal Division titles in 2010 and 2011.

Noting Wake Forest
Wake Forest ranks 11th in the conference in batting (.249) as well as ERA (3.80). The Demon Deacons are 12th in fielding at .964. Grant Shambley leads the team in batting at .324, while Evan Stephens is hitting .299. Wake is tied for the league lead in home runs with 28.

Up Next
UVa starts postseason play next week at the ACC Baseball Championship, which runs May 20-25 at NewBridge Bank Park in Greensboro, North Carolina. The pool-play brackets will be announced Sunday.

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