No. 18 Virginia splits doubleheader with Yale

Virginia (7-4) produced its second come-from-behind victory in as many games, walking off with a 5-4 victory in game one of a doubleheader against Yale (1-5). The Bulldogs held on to a 11-4 victory in game two, earning the split.

With two outs in the bottom of the ninth in game one, Charlie Cody (Chesapeake, Va.) lined a single to center field, scoring Tanner Morris (Crozet, Va.) for the walk-off, game one victory.

Virginia and Yale will play the rubber game of a three-game set on Sunday (March 4) at 1 p.m. The Cavaliers will send right-hander Evan Sperling to the mound and he will be opposed by Bulldog righty Eric Brodkowitz.

Game 1

Virginia’s only lead of the contest came after Cody’s game-winning hit in the bottom of the ninth innings. The Cavaliers trailed by as many as three but scored three runs in their final three turns at the plate to pull out their fifth-straight win.

The Cavaliers received another stellar performance on the mound by senior Derek Casey (Mechanicsville, Va.). The right-hander struck out 12 batters for the second-straight start and allowed only three earned runs over six innings of work. Since 2000, he and Virginia Baseball Hall of Famer, Danny Hultzen, are the only to Cavaliers to fan 12 or more in consecutive starts.

Trailing 4-2 going into the bottom of the seventh, Virginia pulled within a run on a Caleb Knight (Checotah, Okla.) RBI ground out. The RBI was Knight’s team-leading 11th of the season. A batter later, Nate Eikhoff (Bristow, Va.) doubled off Yale reliever Griffin Dey, scoring Andy Weber (Aurora, Ohio) and tying the game at four.

The Cavalier bullpen, anchored by freshman Andrew Abbott (Fairfax, Va.), pitched three scoreless innings to close out the game. Abbott was credited with his first collegiate win after pitching the final two frames. The lefty struck out five batters and ended the top of the ninth with a nice stab on a comebacker, stranding the go-ahead run on third base.

Classmate Griff McGarry (Portola Valley, Calif.) worked a scoreless seventh inning, striking out two of the five batters he faced.

Virginia pitchers combined for 19 strikeouts, the most since fanning 20 as a team on April 25, 2007 against James Madison.

Game 2

The home run ball powered the Bulldogs to their first victory of the season. Dey left the yard twice, a two-run shot in the first inning to extend the lead to 4-0 and a solo homer in the sixth. Yale strung together a season-high 16 hits in the contest.

Yale starting pitcher Kumar Nambiar limited the Cavalier offense to five hits over his seven innings pitched. He sat down first 10 batters of the game and struck out five while walking just one.

Weber hit his second home run of the season in the bottom of the sixth inning, a line-drive solo shot over the right field wall. He has a hit in 10 of the 11 games this season and has a team-best 17 base knocks on the year.

Senior Justin Novak (Tokyo, Japan) had two of the Cavaliers five hits including an RBI double in the bottom of the seventh to make the score 8-4. Eikhoff drove in a pair of runs on a two-out RBI single through the left side in the bottom of the fourth inning.