With the ACC baseball tournament less than one month away, the No. 13 Virginia Cavaliers (34-10, 13-8 ACC) are well on their way to orchestrating one of the most successful seasons in recent program history. After winning two of three against then-No. 19 Miami Hurricanes this past weekend, Virginia returns home this evening at 7 p.m. to take on the Richmond Spiders at Davenport Field.
The red-hot Cavaliers have been rolling since early April, winning nine out of their last ten and eight straight at home. Against Miami this past weekend, Virginia earned victories Friday and Saturday by a combined score of 23-9. Sunday, however, the Hurricanes needed ten innings and a walk-off RBI single to narrowly avoid the Cavalier sweep.
"We really swung the bats well this weekend," Virginia coach Brian O'Connor said. "We battled with two strikes and got a lot of two-out hits. I feel very confident about our offense heading down the stretch run."
Tonight's opponent, the University of Richmond (16-24), has won six of its last eight, including victories over Fordham, James Madison and Duquesne.
"Richmond is playing very good baseball as of late," O'Connor said. "There has always been a rivalry between Richmond and Virginia in baseball, and they've had a great baseball program in the last ten years."
This year's Spider offense is led by senior outfielder Ben Zeskind and sophomore first baseman Joe Mahoney. Zeskin leads the club in batting average (.355), hits (61), runs (42), homers (6) and stolen bases (14), while Mahoney ranks first in RBI's (36) and second in runs (35) and hits (55). Richmond's pitching is headed by junior Rob Berzinskas, who has amassed a 3-1 record and a 5.80 earned-run average in his first eight starts.
On the home side of the diamond, the Cavaliers will give the ball to freshman Shooter Hunt in what will be the right-hander's first collegiate start. Hunt has fanned 23 batters while giving up nine earned runs, eighteen hits and ten walks in 23 innings of relief.
"We've got a lot of good guys on our pitching staff, and we haven't been able to get Shooter a lot of innings in the past two or three weeks," O'Connor said. "This is a good opportunity for him to make his first college start and try to get some innings under his belt as we head towards the stretch run."
This evening's contest marks the second meeting between the two clubs in less than four weeks. In the teams' first meeting, held April 5 in Richmond, the visiting Cavaliers quickly wore out their welcome with a four-run second inning en route to a convincing 5-0 win. Sophomores Pat McAnaney and Michael Schwimer and junior Casey Lambert combined for a five-hit shutout.
Perhaps looking to maximize the club's home-field advantage for this evening's rematch, the Cavalier marching band will be in attendance for the first time in Davenport Field history. In the wake of the team's strong showing against Miami, the blaring horns, pounding drums and raucous home crowd will likely further heighten the team's performance and confidence as it heads into the final month of the regular season.
"Our mood is good right now," sophomore left fielder Brandon Guyer said. "It's always good to take two out of three from a team like Miami. We just have to build on it and keep playing like we've been doing all year."
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