UVa. baseball completes sweep of Monmouth

The Virginia baseball team finished off a three-game series sweep over Monmouth Sunday afternoon with a 13-1 win at Davenport Field. Whit Mayberry (Jr., Alexandria, Va.) pitched six shutout innings, and the Cavaliers (5-1-1) pounded out 18 hits to support him. Virginia outscored Monmouth (3-3) 37-6 in the series.

Reed Gragnani (Jr., Richmond, Va.) went 4-for-4 for Virginia, while Brandon Downes (Fr., South Plainfield, N.J.) was 3-for-5 with a triple, two doubles, three runs and four RBI. Chris Taylor (Jr., Virginia Beach, Va.) added a three-run home run for UVa, which batted around in both the fifth and sixth innings.

Mayberry, who allowed six hits and did not walk a batter, capped a strong weekend from Virginia’s starting pitchers. UVa’s rotation of Branden Kline (Jr., Frederick, Md.), Scott Silverstein (Sr., Olney, Md.) and Mayberry combined to work 19.1 innings while allowing just four earned runs (1.86 ERA).

Monmouth starter Andrew McGee (0-1) took the loss after allowing seven earned runs, eight hits and two walks over 4.2 innings.

After three scoreless innings Virginia broke the deadlock in the fourth. Jared King (Sr., Radford, Va.) led off with a single and advanced on a Colin Harrington (Jr., Johnstown, Pa.) sacrifice. Downes followed with a double to left to plate King. Nate Irving (Fr., Yonkers, N.Y.) singled to right to move Downes to third, and Keith Werman (Sr., Vienna, Va.) laid down a safety squeeze to easily plate Downes and give UVa a 2-0 lead.

UVa blew the game open with a seven-run fifth inning, sending 11 batters to the plate. With one out, Mike Papi (Fr., Tunkhannock, Pa.) doubled in Gragnani from first base. Three batters later, Downes tripled to left-center to score a pair of runs. After Irving was hit by a pitch, Werman singled against reliever Stephen Frey to bring Downes home. Taylor then hit a towering three-run home run over the left-field bleachers to cap the inning and give UVa a 9-0 edge. It was Taylor’s second long ball of the year.

The Cavaliers batted around again in the sixth inning. UVa scored three in the inning on run-scoring hits by Downes, Irving and Mitchell Shifflett (So., Midlothian, Va.).

Monmouth broke up the shutout bid in the seventh inning on a two-out RBI single by Josh Boyd. UVa added a final run in the eighth inning when Stephen Bruno (Jr., Audubon, N.J.) grounded out to bring home Thomas Woodruff (Fr., Clifton, Va.).

Virginia continues its homestand at 3 p.m. Tuesday when it entertains Liberty.