U.Va. reaches NCAA Super Regional
By Jeff White
Published: June 2, 2009

The shot heard 'round the NCAA baseball tourney — the first-inning home run that San Diego State phenom Stephen Strasburg surrendered Friday night — came off the bat of University of Virginia sophomore Phil Gosselin.
Gosselin's blast made all the highlight reels, and understand´ ably so. Strasburg was unbeaten and had a 1.24 earned-run average. To U.Va. coach Brian O'Connor, though, Jarrett Parker set the tone for what would be a magnificent team effort in the double-elimination regional at Irvine, Calif.

Parker, the Cavaliers' leadoff hitter, fought Strasburg to a full count before striking out. Gosselin, the next batter, hammered Strasburg's first offering over the wall.

"I thought that that game was defined by Jarrett Parker's at- bat. I really did," O'Connor said yesterday morning by phone from the team bus. "He fouled a bunch of fastballs off, and Strasburg had to throw him a 3-2 change-up to get him out.

"I just felt like, when you saw Parker up there battling in the first at-bat and fouling fastballs off, it sent a message that we weren't going to back down."

The Cavaliers never retreated in Irvine. From what was dubbed "the regional of death" because of its overall strength, U.Va. emerged very much alive. Virginia, the No. 2 seed, went 3-0 in Irvine, winning by a combined score of 14-2, to advance past the NCAA tournament's first round for the first time.

"Obviously, we're ecstatic," said O'Connor, who has guided the Cavaliers to the NCAAs in each of his six seasons. "It was an unbelievable accomplishment for us, but we've got more work to do."

If the Cavaliers are to reach the College World Series, they'll do so without playing any NCAA tournament games in Charlottesville.

Top-seeded Mississippi beat third-seeded Western Kentucky 4-1 last night to win the regional at Oxford, Miss. Ole Miss (43-18) will meet U.Va. (46-12-1) in a best-of-three Super Regional that will start Friday in Oxford. Had Western Kentucky won last night, the Super Regional would have been at Virginia's Davenport Field.

Virginia and Ole Miss have met only twice in baseball — both times in the 1972 NCAA tournament. In the District III playoffs at Gastonia, N.C., U.Va. beat Ole Miss 9-3. The Rebels won the rematch 9-0 to eliminate the Cavaliers.

"There's no easy road to Omaha" — site of the College World Series — "I can assure you of that," O'Connor said. "So whether that's through Charlottesville, playing at home, or Oxford, Mississippi, we'll take whatever we're given.

"I've said it the last couple of weeks: This team hasn't backed down from challenges at all this year, and no matter where that opportunity is, I know they'll be ready for it."

The U.Va. traveling party was ready to get home when it bid good-bye to the West Coast yesterday. Before leaving for California, the Cavaliers had spent nearly a week in Durham, N.C., where they went 4-0 to win the ACC tournament.

Among those eager to welcome O'Connor home was his daughter Ellie, who turned 9 yesterday. He spoke to her on the phone in the middle of the night yesterday, after Virginia's game ended, and got to wish her a happy birthday, "so it was a treat," O'Connor said.

He cherished his team's performance in Irvine, too. U.Va. opened with a 5-1 win over third-seeded San Diego State, whose superstar, Strasburg, is expected to be the first player selected in this month's Major League Baseball draft. Then came a 5-0 victory Saturday night over No. 1 seed UC Irvine, the nation's top-ranked team heading into the NCAAs.

The Cavaliers followed that gem by ousting UC Irvine on Sunday night, winning 4-1 to capture the regional. Junior catcher Franco Valdes, who had two RBI, hit a go-ahead triple in the sixth inning, and Andrew Carraway and Kevin Arico limited UC Irvine to four hits.

"It was a regional that was dominated by pitching and defense and timely hitting," O'Connor said, "and fortunately we got the best of it."

Five Virginia players were named to the all-tournament team, led by Valdes, the regional's outstanding player. Joining him from U.Va. were freshmen Steven Proscia (3B) and Danny Hultzen (P) and sophomores Parker (OF) and Gosselin (DH).

"Hats off to Virginia, as they're a really, really, really good team," UC Irvine coach Mike Gillespie said.
 

Coach's call turned Morey into Cavs' baseball star
Tom Robinson
Virginian-Pilot sports columnist
The Virginian-Pilot
© June 2, 2009

No problem; take the ball for the University of Virginia and pitch opposite the No. 1 sensation of college baseball.

No pressure; give U.Va. a real chance to win its NCAA tournament opener, a continent away from home, against the unbeaten beast of the radar gun, Stephen Strasburg of San Diego State.

No big thing; reward the faith of a head coach who, after considerable rumination, knew you had started only six college games but picked you anyway to go get it done.

No name; not anymore. Robert Morey, a sophomore from Virginia Beach, took care of that Friday night.

"I felt we needed somebody out there on the mound who had the chance to match (Strasburg)," U.Va. coach Brian O'Connor explained Monday while awaiting his team's flight home from Los Angeles.

(Translation: Runs were going to be scarce against Strasburg. The Cavaliers got two.)

"And I felt on our pitching staff the guy that had the best chance to match Strasburg was Robert Morey. Now, he may not have done it. But I knew he had the kind of stuff to potentially do it."

Morey, a mid-April addition to O'Connor's starting rotation, didn't collect 15 strikeouts in seven innings as did Strasburg - Morey got nine in six. But punch-outs weren't the main point. Command was the thing. Forcing San Diego State's hitters to swing to his beat.

It all worked with such precision, you wonder if U.Va., champion of the ACC, isn't a karmic threat to win the whole crazy College World Series?

Cape Henry Collegiate's Morey won the game, 5-1, that sparked U.Va.'s clean-as-a-whistle weekend roll into the tournament's "super regional" round - a best-of-three series vs. Western Kentucky or Mississippi for a trip to Omaha, Neb.

After they dispatched the Aztecs, the Cavs (46-12-1) took out top-ranked UC Irvine 5-0 on Saturday and again on Sunday 4-1. Count it up; just two runs allowed by U.Va. No fielding errors in 27 innings. Only six walks against 23 strikeouts.

That speaks of sweet execution and a solid grip on the nervous system, which isn't assumed considering O'Connor uses a regular lineup that includes three sophomores and four freshmen.

"The last two weeks, it seems like there's been an aura of confidence in our dugout that I haven't had here," said O'Connor, who's in his sixth season. "I can't explain for sure why it is. But it seems like they really believe in each other."

Morey added to that storehouse by spinning easily his best performance as a starter, O'Connor said. More frequent starters Andrew Carraway and Danny Hultzen, a freshman, were in line to get the ball for the regional opener.

But look beyond innings pitched and you see the "matching Strasburg" potential that O'Connor saw in Morey, a 29th-round draft pick two years ago by Tampa Bay.

Among U.Va.'s starters, Morey yields the lowest batting average (.208) and strikes out the most per inning (1.35). And in the end, he shined with a scoreless, five-hit, three-walk, nine-strikeout effort over six innings that led to Strasburg's first loss after 13 victories, and sparked U.Va.'s march to its first regional crown.

O'Connor said he'd determine his rotation for the super regional later in the week. But after last weekend, the surprise this time will be if Morey doesn't get the Game 1 go-ahead.

"Because of the circumstances he was under - matched up with Strasburg, first game of the regional, getting us off to a great start - it was a tremendous performance," said O'Connor, the only Cavalier available to speak Monday.

"I'll never forget his face on Thursday morning at practice, when I met with him and told him he was getting the ball. He was so excited and so confident.

"You could just tell on his face that he wasn't going to let his team down."
 

Surging Cavaliers young but confident
Dave Fairbank
June 2, 2009

 Brian O'Connor and his Virginia baseball team went against the grain, personally and competitively, to put themselves in position to reach the sport's pinnacle.

A young Virginia team unfazed by challenges and its more muted coach traveled cross country and defeated the best pitcher in college baseball and the nation's No. 1-ranked team — twice — on its home field.

The stingy Cavaliers succeeded by limiting opponents' chances, a novel approach on an NCAA regional weekend chock full of offense and beer-league softball scores.

"I felt like you couldn't get any more confident than we were, coming out of the ACC tournament," O'Connor told reporters Monday morning while awaiting a flight from Los Angeles International Airport, "and now to go out to California and do what we did and who we did it against, there's no question that the team believes in themselves and believes that they can accomplish anything.

"Looking back on it, it's proven to be a very, very good thing that we did get sent out here, other than our all-day travel back (Monday) and how exhausted we are."

The Cavaliers (46-12-1) are two wins away from their first College World Series appearance, after a lights-out pitching and defensive performance at the Irvine, Calif., regional last weekend.

Virginia will travel to Oxford, Miss., to face Mississippi in a best-of-three Super Regional this weekend. Mississippi won its regional Monday night with a 4-1 victory over Western Kentucky.

Though the Cavaliers would prefer to play at home, if they duplicate last weekend, it won't matter if they play in an airplane hangar in Walla Walla, Wash.

Virginia defeated San Diego State and presumptive No. 1 draft pick Stephen Strasburg in the opener Friday, then throttled consensus No. 1 UC Irvine on back-to-back days on the Anteaters' field.

The Cavs' pitching staff allowed just two runs in three games. Cavaliers pitchers struck out 23 and walked six. Opponents batted .210, and the Cavs played error-free.

Virginia got quality starts on all three days, beginning with Robert Morey. The sophomore from Virginia Beach threw six shutout innings versus Strasburg and struck out nine.

The next two days, freshman Danny Hultzen and senior Andrew Carraway limited a UC Irvine lineup that averaged 7.4 runs per game and had seven starters batting better than .300 to a combined one run and 10 hits in 14 1/3 innings.

"It was really incredible," O'Connor said. "To go out to a regional like ours and only give up two runs was really impressive. Along with that was the great defense that we played. We played tremendous defense behind those pitchers."

Pitching and defense provided a big cushion for the Cavaliers, who scored just 14 runs over the weekend, by far the fewest of any of the teams that made the Super Regionals. Thirty-five teams scored at least 10 runs in one of their regional games. Thirteen teams scored more runs in one game than Virginia did all weekend.

Florida State scored more runs in two innings of its absurd 37-6 win Sunday against Ohio State than Virginia did in Irvine. Elon scored more runs in one game than the Cavs did all weekend and lost — 17-15 to Southern Miss.

"I felt all year long that we had a really good ballclub," O'Connor said. "I just thought it was a matter of time before I got that bullpen figured out and that bullpen got confidence in itself, and I felt like once we did that, that we could really, really have a special club, and fortunately that's proven to be true."

Hard to say which is more remarkable — the Cavaliers' success with an everyday lineup that often consists of four freshmen and three sophomores, or O'Connor's approach to handling such a young squad.

Even O'Connor admits to being a bit surprised by his team's collective poise. The Cavs have won seven consecutive postseason games, all on the road.

"In the dugout in the past, in previous years, when things haven't been going our way, you could sense panic," O'Connor said. "You could sense frustration. The last two weeks, I haven't sensed that in our dugout at all. … It just seems like there's been an aura of confidence in our dugout that's something like I haven't had since I've been the coach here."

O'Connor, 38, is in his sixth season at Virginia and has built the Cavaliers into one of the nation's best programs. They are one of just 16 programs to reach the NCAA tournament each of the past six seasons, but this is the Cavs' first trip to the Super Regionals.

He has resisted the urge to micromanage such a young group and said he is more relaxed than previous years, probably due to experience.

"Maybe with a younger ballclub," he said, "I've kind of felt like I need to just let them go out and play. Maybe in the past with a more experienced ballclub, I've gotten frustrated and disappointed when you don't have success immediately within a game. With this younger team, I haven't screamed and hollered as much. I've just kind of let the game come our way, and this team has earned that. They've responded."

 

Cavaliers overcame tough path to win regional
By Jay Jenkins
Published: June 2, 2009

IRVINE, Calif. — A Virginia baseball t-shirt created last week relayed the message louder and clearer than any action taken on the diamond over the weekend at Anteater Ballpark.

The six simple words scripted on the back read: “Any Time, Any Place, Any Where.”

That mantra became the calling card for one of the hottest programs in the nation during a regional at UC Irvine that was feared by all four teams upon arrival.

Virginia, the ACC tournament champion, faced the toughest path to perfection.

It started with a date with the most dominant pitcher in college baseball, San Diego State’s Stephen Strasburg. Yet Virginia responded with a win.

Mired in what proved to be a head-to-head battle with the top-ranked team in the country, host UC Irvine, the Cavaliers responded — and responded again.

In near flawless fashion, Virginia (46-12-1) escaped the Irvine Regional, giving coach Brian O’Connor’s program and its first-ever Super Regional berth.

“We pitched great all weekend, played great defense and got enough timely hitting to win the thing,” O’Connor said. “I felt coming out here with the type of teams that were in the regional, the type of ballpark we were playing in, I felt like it would be a pitching and defense regional and that works pretty well for us.

Virginia had little time to celebrate its victory, leaving Los Angeles early Monday morning without its next opponent determined. The Cavaliers, who have won eight straight games, draw Ole Miss in the Super Regional round.

“I don’t think it matters at this point where or who we play,” Virginia catcher Franco Valdes said. “If we continue to play good baseball, we can compete with anybody in the country.”

That was certainly the case Sunday during the 4-1 victory that moved Virginia within two wins of advancing to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

At the same time, however, O’Connor appeared to have the pulse of his team throughout, whether the decisions involved the left fielder employed, the move to start defensive-minded second baseman Keith Werman or the use of the pitching staff.

During one pivotal spot in particular in the championship game, the skipper strolled to the mound in the seventh inning merely to gauge the mindset of starting pitcher Andrew Carraway.

Throughout the season, O’Connor did not make house calls to the mound.

But in the past, O’Connor had second-guessed himself for pulling the senior and watching the contest implode in the bullpen.

“I went out there, I had a left-hander (Matt Packer) in the bullpen that was ready, and I just had a feeling about Andrew all night that he was not going to be denied,” he said. “I went out there and asked him how he felt and he said he felt great. I said, ‘Do you want this guy?,’ and he said, ‘Absolutely.’

“He said, ‘Coach, I will get it done.’ Fortunately, he got him out and it gave us a big momentum shift.”

Carraway earned the win, following in the footsteps of sophomore Robert Morey and rookie Danny Hultzen over the first two days of the regional.

Winning the regional itself served as vindication for the Cavaliers, a team that had every reason to feel slighted after being snubbed for a No. 1 seed after finishing with the sixth-best RPI in the country.

“At first it was a bit of a surprise to us and it was a shock, but after that we were excited to come out here and prove what a team that was ‘too young’ could achieve,” said Valdes, the regional’s MVP. “We just came out here and did what we have done all season and played 27 outs, from the first pitch to the last pitch, and we came out with a victory.”

Should Virginia advance to Omaha, the Cavaliers would do so with a program-best win total. In 2007, Virginia won 47 regular season games only to drop back-to-back games in the championship game of a regional with Oregon State.

With their stellar play at Irvine, the Cavliers landed one supporter that all but expects the program to advance another round.

“I think this Virginia team is well-prepared to play wherever,” UC Irvine coach Mike Gillespie said. “I think that they will be very, very prepared, and who can predict how things will go but it is going to take a brilliant team to beat them even if they are on the road.

“Hats off to Virginia, who is a very, very good team who played really, really, really well.”
 

Cavaliers love the night life
Three straight late starts in ACC tournament prepped Cavs for regional
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

When pairings were announced for the ACC baseball tournament, Virginia coach Brian O'Connor might have wondered about the benefit of having three consecutive 8 p.m. starts.

What it did was turn the Cavaliers into a team of night owls.

The payoff came early Monday morning, when UVa completed its sweep of a first-round NCAA tournament field that had been dubbed "the region of death."

For the second time in as many days, the Cavaliers beat host Cal-Irvine, which entered postseason as the No. 1 team in the country.

The end came at 2:19 a.m. EDT, when UVa reliever Kevin Arico struck out Anteaters pinch-hitter Jordan Leyland to put the finishing touch on a 4-1 Cavaliers victory.

After wrapping up postgame interviews, O'Connor found time to call his Charlottesville home and awaken his daughter, Ellie, whose ninth birthday was Monday.

"That was kind of special," O'Connor said.

Virginia has been to the NCAA tournament in each of O'Connor's six seasons as coach but previously had not advanced past the first weekend. Twice, the Cavaliers had been sent to the West Coast, including Corvallis, Ore., in 2005 and Fullerton, Calif., last year.

"The big thing was for our team to get out here Tuesday," said O'Connor, who did a teleconference Monday from Los Angeles International Airport. "[That's] a day earlier than we had gotten out here in the past.

"It allowed our players to get acclimated a little bit, but, because of the ACC tournament, we'd been used to playing the late game. The players had gotten into a routine where we'd have breakfast at a certain time, then they'd try and keep themselves busy through the entire day."

By winning its first two games in the Irvine Regional, Virginia had put itself in a position where it would have two chances to win one game. A possible winner-take-all game Monday would have started at 11 p.m. in the East.

Instead, the Cavaliers (46-12-1) were able to get out of Los Angeles at midday and arrive back in Charlottesville in order to learn their destination for a Super Regional this weekend.

That came into focus after top-seeded Mississippi beat Western Kentucky 4-1 on Monday. The Cavaliers will head to Oxford, Miss. to face the Rebels.

Virginia will enter the postseason's second weekend with eight straight victories, a streak that started May 16 in Blacksburg, where UVa was on the verge of being swept by Virginia Tech before rallying from a 4-1 deficit to defeat the Hokies 6-4 in the final game of a three-game series.

Since then, UVa victims have included No. 15 Clemson, No. 4 North Carolina and No. 7 Florida State at neutral sites, followed by No. 1 Cal-Irvine on its home field.

In the opening game of the Irvine Regional, Virginia faced a San Diego State team that boasted the likely No. 1 pick in next week's Major League Baseball Draft, pitcher Stephen Strasburg. Strasburg, possessor of a fastball clocked at 103 mph, entered the game with a 13-0 record but was beaten by the Cavaliers 5-1.

UVa's second batter, Phil Gosselin, hit a home run on the first pitch Strasburg threw to him, but O'Connor thought the tone was set by leadoff hitter Jarrett Parker.

"You may look at it and say, 'Yeah, but he struck out,' " O'Connor said. "But, he fouled some great fastballs off on two strikes and Strasburg had to throw him a 3-2 change-up to strike him out. After that at-bat, our guys had a feeling of, 'We were here to compete.' And wouldn't you know it, Gosselin hits the next pitch out of the park.

"And, the other key was, we got him to throw 50 pitches in the first two innings."

The Cavaliers got timely hitting throughout the weekend, but the major factor was a pitching staff that entered the NCAA tournament with a 3.33 team ERA. That ranked third in Division I but was nothing compared to their 0.67 ERA in Irvine.

In the Cavaliers' 5-0 and 4-1 victories over UCI, UVa pitchers gave up a total of 10 hits, all singles.

Senior Andrew Carraway and Arico, a sophomore, combined for a four-hitter Sunday night against an Anteaters team that had 19 hits earlier in the day in a 14-3 victory over San Diego State.

"Some teams would be rooting for Irvine to lose," O'Connor said. "I didn't hear any of that out of our team. In previous years, when things weren't going our way, you could sense panic, you could sense frustration. The last two weeks, there's been an aura of confidence in our dugout that I haven't had here."

Cavaliers complete regional in perfect fashion
By Jay Jenkins
Published: June 1, 2009

IRVINE, Calif. - Apparently, dogpiles are going out of style.

Perhaps expectations outweighed the reality.

Regardless of the mild celebration that unfolded at Anteater Park, second-seeded Virginia made program history Sunday night with a regional-clinching 4-1 victory over UC Irvine.

With the win, Virginia completed the Irvine Regional in perfect fashion and improved to 46-12-1 overall. The Cavaliers await today’s winner in the championship game of the Oxford Regional between host Ole Miss and Western Kentucky.

Should Western Kentucky pull off the upset on the road, the Cavaliers should host a Super Regional starting Friday or Saturday. If not, UVa will travel to Oxford, Miss.

“That is a huge step for our program,” said Virginia coach Brian O’Connor. “We came out here to what people were saying was the toughest regional in the field and we played spectacular baseball all weekend.

“I am so proud of our team for what they have accomplished up to this point. I just felt like this weekend that we played as good as we could play.”

O’Connor liked his chances of beating Irvine entering the contest after the Anteaters (44-15) were relegated to the loser’s bracket and forced to throw their No. 3 starter in an elimination game against San Diego State following their 5-1 setback to Virginia on Saturday.

That was compounded by the fact that Virginia had senior Andrew Carraway fresh to start.

Carraway rose to the occasion.

The right-handed Georgia native mystified the Anteaters for seven full innings, scattering four hits and a walk while fanning three batters.

Virginia’s offense eventually spotted Carraway a run. In the top half of the fourth, left fielder John Hicks drew a two-out walk and scored on a double by Franco Valdes.

Irvine, the top-ranked team in the country, answered with its lone run off Carraway in the fourth on a two-out single from Jeff Cusick.

The game remained tied until the sixth, when Virginia plated a run. Valdes, the regional’s MVP, drove in Danny Hultzen from second with his first triple of the season. The hit bounced over the bag at first and rolled into the right-field corner.

“I can promise you that I did not play Franco for his speed,” O’Connor joked.

Virginia clung to the one-run lead until the top-half of the ninth when the Cavaliers added a pair of runs on back-to-back triples from Jarrett Parker and Tyler Cannon.

“Those were key insurance runs against a quality team like UC Irvine,” O’Connor said.

That gave breathing room for Virginia closer Kevin Arico, who entered for Carraway in the eighth. Arico, who struck out two batters, did not allow a baserunner and recorded his 11th save of the season.

Virginia finished with 10 hits in the contest and stranded 10 runners on base.
 

A big omission
Jeff White
Jun 01, 2009

CHARLOTTESVILLE – When Morgan Moses signed a football letter-of-intent with U.Va., it was no secret that the mammoth offensive tackle from Meadowbrook High might not qualify for admission in 2009-10.

Some four months later, Moses, a Parade All-American in 2008, appears unlikely to play for the Cavaliers this season. The start of summer school is looming for incoming football recruits, and today I found all of the players who signed in February with U.Va. listed in the directory on http://www.virginia.edu, with one exception: Moses.

The recruits listed include Hunter Steward, an offensive lineman from Kellam High in Virginia Beach. When Steward committed to U.Va., there was some talk that he would delay his enrollment until 2010, but that idea seems to have been scrapped.

In conversations with people who are familiar with Moses’ situation, I was told last week that there’s still a chance he’ll meet NCAA standards for freshman eligiblity. It’s more likely, though, that Moses will spend a year at a prep school – probably Fork Union Military Academy – before enrolling at Virginia in the summer of 2010.