Comeback! UVA rallies from four down, tops USC, advances to Super Regionals

Southern Cal led UVA 9-5 after batting around for the second time in the first four innings. David Rosenberger settled things down with four perfect innings of relief, and the Cavs scored three in the eighth and five in the 11th to pull off an improbable 13-10 victory early Monday morning.

The win sends the ‘Hoos to the Super Regionals for the sixth time in seven years. Virginia will play the winner of the game between Maryland and overall national #1 seed UCLA next weekend.

It seemed that the Lake Elsinore Regional was destined to go to a deciding game after UVA blew an early 4-0 lead. The Cavs scored four in the top of the first off USC starter Bernardo Flores, but USC knocked Virginia starter Alec Bettinger out of the game in the bottom of the first without Bettinger recording an out, to take a 5-4 lead after one.

Virginia tied the game in the second on a Kenny Towns RBI single, and it would stay that way until the fourth, when USC scored four runs, taking advantage of a walk and two errors to chase reliever Kevin Doherty.

It was 9-5 Southern Cal at that point. Reliever Mason Perryman, who hadn’t pitched in more than a month, ate up innings for the Trojans, going four innings in relief, giving up just a run on a hit, with five walks that had him in and out of trouble.right

Perryman got out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the sixth with just a single run scoring, on a pop-fly RBI single by Matt Thaiss, before getting Towns and Pavin Smith to pop up to end that threat.

But UVA knotted the game in the eighth. After again loading the bases with one down, Smith singled to left to score Daniel Pinero and Thaiss, and when Bobby Stahel misplayed the ball Towns came all the way around from first with the tying run.

This was when Rosenberger (3-0) was working his magic, putting up four straight 1-2-3 innings.

UVA broke through in the 11th off Brent Wheatley (4-4), with Doherty doubling to right-center to score Joe McCarthy, who led off the inning with an infield single and was at second after a sacrifice bunt by Ernie Clement.

Adam Haseley was intentionally walked, and Pinero loaded the bases after being hit by a 1-2 pitch. Thaiss singled to right to score Doherty and Haseley, and right fielder A.J. Ramirez misplayed the ball into a two-base error that allowed Pinero to score from first, extending the UVA lead to 13-9.

A Towns grounder was misplayed by Wheatley, allowing Thaiss to score to make it 14-9 Virginia.

Josh Sborz came in for Rosenberger to close things out, but Sborz wasn’t as sharp as he had been in finishing Virginia’s first two wins in Lake Elsinore, allowing an unearned run on a hit and a walk before he got Jeremy Ramirez to line out to left to end it.

Southern Cal clearly ran out of gas in the 11th. The Trojans had rallied from a 7-3 deficit earlier Sunday to knock off San Diego State, 12-11, scoring three in the ninth in the elimination game to reach the regional final.

USC pitchers gave up 10 hits and issued 14 walks, and the defense committed four errors, leading to four unearned runs.

Virginia was playing the regional round of the NCAA Tournament away from Charlottesville for the first time since 2009, when the ‘Hoos were the #2 seed in the Irvine Regional, and defeated San Diego State pitcher Stephen Strasburg before sweeping two from the host Anteaters on their way to the program’s first College World Series appearance.