Remember when the Virginia baseball team was ranked second in the polls and thinking national championship? Ain’t gonna happen in 2021.
Liberty is actually good, and showed it in an easy 10-2 victory over Virginia on Wednesday at Liberty Baseball Stadium.
The loss snapped the Cavaliers’ 20-game midweek win streak.
Liberty (14-5) sent 10 batters to the plate in the bottom of the first inning and posted five runs, the third time this season a Virginia opponent has scored five or more in a single inning.
The big blow came off the bat of Will Wagner, who hit a three-run homer, his third long ball of the season.
The win for Liberty extended its winning streak to 12 games, a program record for its time at the D-I level. The Flames are 3-0 against ACC schools this season after taking two games against North Carolina.
Trailing 6-0 after three, the Cavaliers (9-11) broke through in their half of the fourth when the first two batters of the inning, Kyle Teel and Zack Gelof, reached base. A wild pitch moved them both into scoring position, and both scored on sacrifice flies by Brendan Rivoli and Devin Ortiz.
That’s as good as it would get for overmatched Virginia.
Liberty tacked on three more runs in its final two trips to the plate and dashed any hope of a UVA comeback. Back-to-back two-out RBI hits by Aaron Anderson and Wagner made the score 9-2 and the Flames scored an unearned run on a successful safety squeeze attempt in the ninth.
Wagner finished the day 2-for-5 with a double, home run and four RBI while Anderson had a game-high three hits and scored a run.
The Cavaliers return home this weekend for an ACC series against Miami. The series opener is slated for Friday (and first pitch is set for 4 p.m. at Disharoon Park.
All three games on the weekend will be carried on ACCNX.
You can buy tickets, but rest assured, if you for a second aren’t wearing a mask, an usher will accost you and make you want to leave, so you probably shouldn’t bother.
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Chris Graham
