The fireworks from the Dogwoods festival at McIntire Park could be seen over the center field wall during last night's baseball game at Davenport Field. They were matched by the offensive fireworks put up by the visiting Richmond Spiders in their 15-6 victory over the Virginia baseball team.
Though the game looked like it would be a close but high-scoring game through the sixth inning, Virginia's pitching and a few defensive mistakes allowed the Spiders to pull away.
The Spiders (33-4) struck early against Virginia sophomore pitcher Canon Hickman, who allowed three runs each in the top of the first and second innings before junior Greg Hansard relieved him.
The Cavaliers (19-19), though, managed a promising comeback in the bottom of the second inning. With a man on second base, junior catcher Andrew Riesenfeld homered over the right-field wall. This started a five-run rally, with two runs scoring off sacrifice flies in the second inning and a run batted in the bottom of the third by senior Rob Newton. The Spiders, however, had put up another run in the top of the third to take a 7-5 lead that would stand through the bottom of the sixth.
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"For a while I thought it was going to be a slugfest," senior third baseman Dan Street said.
But things got ugly in the top of the seventh-inning.
"Our middle relievers helped us some so we could have a chance," Riesenfeld said. "But there in the seventh inning, we were just looking for someone to step up."
The Spiders tacked on six runs against two Cavalier relievers, junior Shooter Starr and freshman Andrew Dobies.
"I think we should be disappointed in our starting pitching," Virginia coach Dennis Womack said. "We've got to throw the ball better, you can't give up this many runs."
The situation did not improve. Though senior David Stone's RBI single in the bottom of the eighth showed that the Cavaliers had some life left in them, the Spiders scored twice more in the top of the ninth to complete the scoring before all was said and done.
"I'm proud," Womack said. "We fought back and they had to throw the ball hard at us to keep us from tying it before things fell apart. But we're struggling right now."
The Cavaliers have been struggling for some time now. The loss last night, coupled with this weekend's sweep at the hands of Wake Forest, has Virginia hovering at the .500 mark. The Cavaliers, with tough ACC opponents Georgia Tech and Clemson ahead, also have eight more non-conference games in the regular season.
On the road "there's not going to be anything easy," Womack said. "Unfortunately, we don't have a very good offensive club."
"We've gotten some really tough breaks like injuries to pitchers," Street said. "We just got to have people step up like the younger pitchers and younger hitters."
The Cavaliers are not done with Richmond yet. Virginia will face the Spiders today at 3 p.m. at Pitt Field in Richmond.
"They've got a good ball club," Womack said.
Richmond came into the home-and-home series with Virginia with a .304 team batting average and a 3.54 team earned run average. And Richmond's dominance in the Atlantic-10 conference justifies the Spiders' lofty national ranking.
"We've got to come out tomorrow with an optimistic attitude," Riesenfeld said. "We just got to take it to them and come out on top."
The Cavaliers, after today's game against Richmond, will go on to face a slew of in-state opponents before resuming ACC play at Georgia Tech. Virginia Tech, UNC-Greensboro and Liberty await the Cavaliers on their non-conference slate.
"Any time you have an in-state rivalry," Riesenfeld said, "you are going to go down there and play hard"
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