Virginia head coach Brian O’Connor has been selected as the 2015 National Coach of the Year by Baseball America, as announced Friday by the publication. Baseball America is the fourth organization to honor O’Connor as its National Coach of the Year, joining Collegiate Baseball, D1Baseball and Perfect Game.
O’Connor has been named National Coach of the Year twice in his career. He also was the NCBWA and College Baseball Insider National Coach of the Year in 2009. In addition, he was named one of four Coaches of the Year by the College Baseball Foundation in 2006.
O’Connor guided Virginia to its first NCAA Championship in 2015. UVa also won its sixth regional championship in the last seven years.
While UVa battled through a turbulent regular-season which was plagued by injuries, youth and inconsistency, the Cavaliers saved their best baseball for May and June. A No. 3 regional seed, UVa swept through three games at the NCAA Lake Elsinore (Calif.) Regional before returning home to post a pair of comeback wins over Maryland to take the NCAA Charlottesville Super Regional and advance to the College World Series.
Virginia went 10-2 in the NCAA tournament, including a 5-2 mark at the CWS. UVa defeated Arkansas in its CWS opener before recording a pair of wins over both No. 4 national seed Florida and Vanderbilt to capture the championship. After losing the opening game of the best-of-3 CWS Finals to Vanderbilt, UVa became just the third team in the finals era to rebound and win the series.
Virginia is one of six programs to reach each of the last 12 NCAA tournaments and one of two schools to play in four College World Series since 2009. UVa posted a 44-24 record in 2015 for its 10th 40-win season in the last dozen seasons as O’Connor upped his career record at UVa to 558-201-2.
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Chris Graham
