Max Stammel looked good in a midweek start. Noah Murray got a big two-out hit. Jake Weatherspoon hit one a mile, and the fan out in left-center made a nice basket catch.
#10 Virginia trailed 4-1 in the fifth, got a pair of runs in the fifth and sixth, and closed out a really good Liberty team for a gritty 5-4 win on Wednesday at The Dish.
“It started with Max Stammel, guy that’s been grinding, had a couple of tough outings, had to move to the midweek, no complaint, no pout, just continued to work at his craft. I thought that was maybe as good as Max Stammel’s looked all year,” first-year UVA coach Chris Pollard said after the win.
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Stammel, whoo, boy. Since giving up a run on three hits in six innings in a win over #3 North Carolina on March 7, he’d given up 26 runs on 37 hits in 20.2 innings over six appearances, five starts, with an 11.32 ERA and 2.23 WHIP.
Tonight: 3.2 innings, one run, two hits, five Ks, no walks.
Didn’t get the win in the box score, but was good enough to give Pollard another option.
A throwing error by Murray gave Liberty (29-12) a pair of unearned runs in a three-run Flames fourth.
Weatherspoon got one back in Virginia’s half of the fourth with a solo shot to left-center.
A Tanner Marsh RBI single got the Flames that run back in the fifth, making it 4-1.
The ’Hoos (29-13) scored in the bottom half of the frame on an error on a Murray sac bunt and an RBI groundout off the bat of Antonio Perrota.
UVA took its first lead of the night in the sixth.
With two outs and nobody on, Zach Johnson worked a walk on a seven-pitch AB, stole second, got to third on a grounder off the bat of RJ Holmes that was scored a throwing error by Marsh – but seriously, tough play in the hole, should have been a hit.
Holmes stole second, then scored on a two-run single to right-center from Murray.
Liberty got one runner aboard in the seventh and eighth off Virginia reliever Lucas Hartman, who pitched around the baserunners.
Tyler Kapa struck out the side in a 1-2-3 ninth, with his fastball back in the mid-90s – sitting 95, touching 96 – after an outing on Saturday against Clemson when he struggled to get out of the low 90s.
“I just think it shows the grit of this group,” said Pollard, who was without stars Eric Becker (hand) and AJ Gracia (concussion protocol) for the second straight game.
“I think the last two games, we’ve kind of flexed our toughness a little bit,” Pollard said. “This team hasn’t always been tough. Go back to the fall, and you go back to early in the year, we needed to grow into some toughness, and we’ve started to become a really tough group, because you’re playing without Becker and Gracia. To see the guys step up, I don’t know that it is because we’re playing without them. I think sometimes, when something like that happens, you go one of two ways, right? You either answer the bell, or you curl up in the corner.”
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