Fresh off three blowout wins earlier this week, the Virginia baseball team heads to Clemson this weekend with an air of newfound confidence and guarded optimism.
Virginia (24-11, 5-8 ACC) thrashed visiting Norfolk State Tuesday and swept University of Maryland Eastern Shore in a doubleheader Wednesday. The Tigers, however, are sure to provide a much stiffer test.
"The competition level is -- no discredit to UMES or Norfolk -- going to completely change this weekend," Virginia coach Brian O'Connor said.
O'Connor also was quick to point out the value of this week's games on individual players and on the team as a whole.
"Guys really get their confidence [up]," O'Connor said. "No matter who you're facing, if you get hits and you believe in yourself, you'll be better off the next time because of it. I'm hoping that confidence pays its dividends this weekend."
Virginia will need a strong showing for a variety of reasons, chief among them the ACC championship in May.
At 5-8 in the ACC, the Cavaliers currently are 8th in the conference standings, 2.5 games behind Wake Forest for the 7th spot. In the ACC championship, the 8th seed must win two play-in games to get into the regular tournament bracket. The 7th seed is automatically placed into the bracket.
Virginia also has struggled mightily on the road in ACC play, getting swept at both Wake Forest and North Carolina. The Cavaliers' lone ACC road win came against Virginia Tech March 27.
While they are aware of the challenge that Clemson presents, the players are sure they can ride the recent wave of offense and continue spraying hits all over the field.
"We've had a couple of losses and a couple of bad beats [the last two weekends]," shortstop Ryan Zimmerman said. "When you're in a slide like that, the most important thing is to get out on the field and play as much as you can, get a couple wins, get your confidence level back up, and I think that's what these three games did. It proves we can still hit, it just gives us some confidence heading down there into Clemson."
Zimmerman has been absolutely automatic from the plate recently, hitting .688 in the past five games with five runs scored and seven runs batted in. He also has six doubles and one home run over the same stretch and has at least one extra-base hit in each game.
Zimmerman's performances, despite the team's lackluster showing in the final two games at N.C. State, help prove O'Connor's philosophy on baseball.
"When you have personal pride in what you're doing individually and as a player, you are going to come out and still perform, no matter what the situation is," O'Connor said. "The game of baseball is all about individual performances, and then, you put them together collectively as a team. If you have personal pride in what you are doing, no matter what the situation is, what the score is, you're still going to play hard and try to accomplish great things."
With conference No. 3 Clemson on the docket, the Cavaliers will need some great performances to propel them up the ACC standings and prove they can compete against the ACC's best anywhere, anytime.
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