On March 26, the UVA Baseball team had a 12-11 record, a team batting average of .287, they were averaging .87 home runs per game, the club was carrying a .427 slugging percentage, scoring 6.78 runs per outing and collecting a paltry 2.87 extra base hits per game.
Heading into the 2025 exam break, some things have changed.
That said, the ’Hoos are still in a critical position with respect to NCAA Tournament consideration. Fortunately, they control their own destiny. Two teams ahead of them from the Atlantic Coast Conference are on the schedule to close out the regular season. The ’Hoos face the Miami Hurricanes the weekend following the break at The Dish and close out the regular season with the Virginia Tech Hokies in Blacksburg.
Consensus appears to be that if Virginia can take care of business midweek, win both of those series and end the regular season with a minimum 15-12 record in the conference, they should be well positioned to be playing in June.
Head coach Brian O’Connor’s crew has been playing well over the last six weeks, winning 14 of their 19 games (.736 winning percentage), including barely missing a sweep of Georgia Tech in Atlanta this past weekend. Still, the visiting Cavaliers handed the Jackets two of their eight home losses this season.
The Cavaliers are also winning the games they should win, claiming victories over VCU and Navy this week. The VCU game left some hometown fans breathless as Virginia escaped with a 9-8 victory.
“We had the big six runs in the fourth inning, that was big for us,” O’Connor stated. “Jimmy Nunnallee’s double down the left field line was big, his baserunning extended it, and he took the extra 90. Henry Ford’s three-run home run was big for us.”
The ’Hoos finished the week with a 5-1 win over the Midshipmen.
“The last eight days, coming back from Florida State, I feel like the team has energy, we’re playing some of our best baseball and what an important time for us to do that,” added O’Connor. “Winning college baseball games is hard.”
The UVA skipper told his players they should be excited about how they’re playing going into exam break.
“Our approach needs to be that we can’t give any games away. We need to treat it like this is the end of the season. It’s got to be that kind of urgency. We put ourselves in that position,” the veteran coach acknowledged.
O’Connor says the players have responded well over the last seven games.
“They know what’s at stake. They know they’ve got to play great baseball the rest of the season to have an opportunity to play in June. That’s been our message to them.”
In fact, the club has responded well since late March.
The ’Hoos have gone from a .521 winning percentage to a .736 mark, a 30 percent improvement. Much of that has been the result of a power surge that was missing in the first half of the year.
Virginia has raised its batting average 20 percentage points from .287 to .307 since late March, their runs per game has jumped 2.33 per game up to 9.11, the number of home runs per game have almost doubled in the last 19 games, the team is hitting 4.2 extra base knocks per game, a 1.33 improvement per contest, on-base percentage has realized a 14 percent bump, and slugging percentage has ballooned 59 percentage points from .427 to .486.
Not only are the bats getting a surge, but several much-needed arms are starting to see action as the regular season winds to a close. Drew Koenen, Chris Arroyo and Bryson Moore all saw action this week prior to the exam break.
“You don’t know which day you’ll play on [in the ACC Tournament], and so that’s part of the reason Koenen got the opportunity [Wednesday] and got stretched out, stretched out Arroyo, and obviously Moore being back. When you go into the postseason, you need to have as many guys available as possible.”
The team took Thursday off and will practice two of the next three days, very short practices around the exam schedules, and spend some time in the weight room. But as student-athletes, the priority for the next seven days will be for them to focus on academics.
“They all came to the University of Virginia for a reason, and that’s to get a tremendous education, so that needs to be at the forefront of their thoughts right now,” said O’Connor.”
Hopefully, the .736 winning percentage play will continue, and Virginia fans can be enjoying watching the ’Hoos late into June.
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