It's hard to imagine anything that could have been both as exciting and painful as this year's Virginia baseball post season.
Virginia started off the post season by steamrolling every opponent on the way to the ACC championship game. Virginia defeated Clemson, 8-0, N.C. State, 12-0, and then Clemson again, 5-4, to make the ACC championship contest, where they fell to Georgia Tech, 4-3. Their performance in the ACC tournament earned them an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament. They played two games in the double-elimination contest, falling first to St. John's, 5-3, then Ohio State, 2-1, on a bottom of the ninth tie-breaking run.
"We were happy with the season but we weren't really satisfied." junior Ryan Zimmerman said.
Both the Red Storm and the Buckeyes were seeded lower than the Cavaliers, but Virginia scored only four runs in the two games combined and were the first team sent home from the Regional, hosted by No. 1 seed Oregon State.
"It was a situation where St. John's pitcher was a first round draft pick and we just weren't able to match him on the mound," O'Connor said. "Against Ohio State, we just didn't get enough key hits."
Although Virginia's seed in the ACC tournament -- 7th out of 11 -- may have led some to be surprised at their performance in the contest, it didn't seem out of character to anyone who had seen their series against Georgia Tech, where they swept the then-first place conference team by scores of 4-2, 9-2, 1-0.
"That Georgia Tech series was a turning point," O'Connor said. "Actually, April 17th, the Sunday game at Clemson[the weekend game directly preceding the series] which we won following losses on Friday and Saturday was a major turning point... From that point on we went 9-4 in the ACC against Georgia Tech, Florida State, Miami, and Duke, to finish 14-14 in the ACC."
This midpoint turnaround can be attributed largely to the emergence of the freshman on the team.
Virginia started the season with over a third of the team new to U.Va. Yet as the season went on the freshman performed well above and beyond expectations. At the end of the season, three of the freshman -- Sean Doolittle, Robert Poutier, and Pat McAnaney -- made the freshman Louisville Slugger All-American team. Sean Doolittle in particular was a bit of a freshman phenom this season, leading the team in home runs (11), finishing out the season with a .313 batting average, all the while managing to balance pitching and playing first base throughout the entire season. In addition, freshman Brandon Guyer emerged as quite a strong player in his own right, finishing with a .282 batting average -- the fifth highest on the team -- and four home runs, tying him with senior Matt Avery for third highest on the team.
"The way we rebounded from that 5-10 midseason mark in the ACC says a lot about the character of this team." Zimmerman said. "This team has a lot of good young players and much potential for next year."
Next year Virginia will have to do without some of its key players. Most notably, Zimmerman himself, who finished out with the teams highest batting average (.393), second highest home runs (6) and most runs batted in (59), as well as being an accomplished third baseman and shortstop. In addition to Zimmerman, Virginia will be losing its seniors, including pitcher Jeff Kamrath, catcher Scott Headd second baseman Kyle Werman, and right fielder Matt Street. Still, with this year's freshmen now knowing the ropes, and ready for a new season, the team should be all right.
"My vision is to continue to recruit good players to build and maintain a program that is among the top in the ACC. We want to go to the College World Series in Omaha." O'Connor said. "We have a good recruiting class coming in next year, even better than last year's."
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