Freshman Nate Savino held Dartmouth to two hits in four innings, and the Virginia bullpen closed things out in a 4-3 win that completed a weekend sweep.
The ‘Hoos (9-3) have won eight of their last nine games with ACC play set to begin next weekend.
But it wasn’t easy. Dartmouth (2-5) got the potential tying run on base in each of the last three innings, before closer Stephen Schoch was able to close things out for his fourth save, working around a leadoff single in the ninth to strike out the side.
“I thought today was a really gutty team win,” UVA coach Brian O’Connor said. “When you bring four relievers in who all have a fair amount of experience here, I thought they all did a nice job. It wasn’t an impressive offensive day, but we did enough, executed two hit and runs and Chris Newell had another spectacular day for us. We just did enough and sometimes that’s baseball, sometimes that’s what you have to do to be a little bit better.”
Junior Andrew Abbott was credited with his third win, tied for the team lead. He came in and did not allow an earned run over 2.2 innings while striking out two.
The freshman duo of Max Cotier and Chris Newell combined to drive in two of the four Cavalier runs. As the second batter of the game, Cotier gave Virginia the early lead with a solo home run to right center, the first of his career.
Newell had a pair of doubles, including a rope down the right field line in the fourth inning that scored Logan Michaels and broke a 1-1 tie.
The Cavaliers tacked on a pair of unearned runs in the seventh to make the score 4-2. One came on a sacrifice fly by Michaels that plated Zack Gelof. Michaels came around in what proved to be the go-ahead run on a two-out Dartmouth throwing error.
Making his second career start on the mound for the Cavaliers, Savino gave up a run on two hits while striking out four hitters.
The Cavaliers will play one more non-conference opponent before beginning ACC play next weekend against N.C. State.
Virginia will host Richmond on Tuesday (March 3) at 3 p.m.
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