At the end of the 2007 season, there were clear divisions between the elite, the middle of the pack and the bottom of the heap in the ACC. Florida State, North Carolina, Clemson and Virginia were at the top, each with more than 40 wins. At the bottom sat Virginia Tech, Duke, Maryland and Boston College, each with no more than 12 conference wins. Everyone else was somewhere in the middle.
Coming into this season, most did not expect too much to change. Miami was the only other squad to join the four "elite" teams of last year as squads ranked in the preseason.
George Mason basketball coach Jim Larranaga, speaking in a press conference yesterday, compared his current team with his team of two years ago that went to the Final Four. This gave us a keen reminder that, in college athletics, time changes everything.
"That was then," he told The Associated Press. "This is now."
Similarly, when Boston College, the same team that went 24-27 and 12-17 in the conference a year ago, comes to Charlottesville this weekend, Virginia should expect a new team. Though the Eagles sit at just 9-8 and 3-4 in the conference, a closer look at the team's schedule sheds more light on the danger the Eagles bring. Three of their losses came in a road series against No. 6 Miami, and two have come in extra innings. Most recently, the Eagles traveled to then-No. 24 Clemson and took two of three.
"It doesn't surprise me that Boston College beats Clemson two out of three in their ballpark, because they've got a good team," Virginia coach Brian O'Connor said. "They know what it's like to play on the road."
Just last weekend, the Cavaliers experienced an ugly upset by a much-improved Duke squad that won only eight conference games in 2007. The Blue Devils took two of three from the Cavaliers, including game one in which they dinged highly touted junior starting pitcher Jacob Thompson for six runs in three innings on their way to a 9-8 win. Duke is now 18-3 and 3-3 in the conference.
The one win Virginia pulled out against Duke came courtesy of the Cavaliers' No. 2 starting pitcher, senior Pat McAnaney, who threw the first complete game of his career while giving up just one unearned run. In his first year in the weekend rotation, McAnaney has allowed just 18 hits in 28 innings and has worked his ERA down to a microscopic 1.29.
"The first couple outings, the pitch seems to be the change-up," said McAnaney, whose arsenal also includes a fastball, curveball and slider. "Last weekend against Duke, their lineup was all right-handers, and against a righty, a change-up is an effective pitch."
After being selected in the 28th round of the MLB Draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates coming out of high school, the southpaw elected to come to Virginia instead. McAnaney pitched more than 50 innings each of his first two seasons and was projected to finally compete for a spot in the weekend rotation last season. A broken finger on his throwing hand suffered right before the start of the 2007 season, however, put McAnaney out of the first month of the season, and he settled for a spot in the bullpen on the weekend while making four midweek starts. O'Connor's confidence in McAnaney slowly grew as the season went along, however; he rewarded his pitcher with a start against Oregon State in the NCAA Tournament. McAnaney responded by allowing just a single run in five innings; Virginia would eventually lose the game and the series, however, to the eventual College World Series champions.
"Last year was a tough year, because I was looking forward to coming in and getting one of those weekend spots," McAnaney said. "But, I'd say last year was more frustrating just by the way it ended. That kind of left a bitter taste in everyone's mouth all through the summer."
Now given the opportunity to start against conference opponents in his senior year, McAnaney has thus far been the most consistent of Virginia's three weekend starters. Among McAnaney, Thompson and Sunday starter junior Andrew Carraway, he is the only one to allow two runs or fewer in each of his starts.
"There's a confidence that he's carrying himself with, that he's not going to be denied," O'Connor said. "He's throwing with good velocity, he's mixing his pitches really well and he's just really confident that he can pitch himself out of any situation."
On a pitching staff loaded with youth, McAnaney's experience is huge for Virginia. The early departure of Sean Doolittle left a void in Virginia's weekend rotation, and other than Thompson and Carraway, McAnaney is the only other starter on staff with more than a year under his belt.
"That's meant a lot to us, to have a senior guy in Pat that's been through a lot of starts in his career and some ups and downs," O'Connor said. "Especially when you have a lot of youth on the team, to have a veteran guy on that mound on Saturdays in this league has proved to be very important."
This weekend, Virginia will feature the usual starting rotation of Thompson, McAnaney and Carraway against Boston College.
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