By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The calendar still shows March, and the University of Virginia baseball team has yet to reach the midpoint of its regular season. The postseason is “down the road,” UVA head coach Brian O’Connor noted Sunday afternoon, and he’s focused on his team’s next challenge: a non-conference game against visiting Old Dominion on Tuesday.
Still, for a program that’s looking to host an NCAA tournament regional for the first time since 2016, this was an important weekend. Eighth-ranked UVA swept ACC rival Florida State for the first time in 10 years, winning 3-2 in 10 innings on Friday, 12-4 on Saturday, and 15-4 on Sunday at Disharoon Park.
This is O’Connor’s 20th season with the Cavaliers, and they’ve hosted nine NCAA regionals and five super regionals during his tenure. Before each season, O’Connor said, the coaches talk to the players about what’s required to be awarded home games in the NCAA tournament.
“They know what you have to do to be playing in this ballpark late in the season and in postseason,” O’Connor said. “They don’t play for that motivation, but they understand it, and they understand what games like this mean to earn that kind of opportunity.”
This is not a vintage FSU team, but sweeps are elusive in the ACC, no matter the opponent. In each of its first two conference series, Virginia dropped the finale after winning the first two games. The Cavaliers had no such issues Sunday on a splendid spring afternoon before a crowd of 5,706 at the Dish.
“It was great to see that we can finish something off,” O”Connor said. “When you get to the end of the season, where you want to be playing in postseason, that’s what you have to do. Two games isn’t enough, and we proved it to ourselves that we have it in us and could do it.”
The Wahoos (22-2 overall, 7-2 ACC) blew past FSU (12-12, 3-6) with an eight-run third inning in which they sent 13 batters to the plate. Junior third baseman Jake Gelof had four RBI in that inning: the first three on a home run and the fourth on a single that drove in freshman Harrison Didawick.
The homer was Gelof’s team-leading eighth of the season and 33rd of his career. He’s tied with Mike Lindner (1987-90) for fourth on UVA’s all-time list.
“I was waiting for that home run this weekend out of somebody,” O’Connor said,…