O’Connor praised the work of pitching coach Drew Dickinson. “He’s been here five years, and the games he calls at this time of the year are his best games. He’s prepared and he believes in every pitcher that we run out there,” O’Connor said.
“A lot has been made about our offense, and rightfully so. It’s one of the top offenses in the country. But this weekend, we had to do enough offensively [to win], and we were led by our pitching and defense. This time of the year you’re going to face great arms in the other dugout, so you’ve got to pitch great and you’ve got to play great defense, and it excites me for what we can potentially do moving forward.”
Twice Sunday night the Bulldogs had a runner on second with no outs, and each time Woolfolk quelled the threat.
In the fourth, he retired three straight batters after giving up a leadoff double to Hines. In the sixth, Woolfolk teamed with O’Ferrall on a flawlessly executed pickoff play, catching David Mershon off second base for the inning’s second out, and then retired the next batter on a fly ball to center field.
O’Connor said he and Dickinson decided two weeks ago that Woolfolk would be Virginia’s No. 3 starter in the regional.
“He’s got really electric stuff,” O’Connor said. “He had some bumps in the road this year, but those bumps made him tougher and prepared him for the opportunity that he had tonight. And I just believed that he could get us off to a good start. But as the game started moving on in the middle innings, he was just determined. When he managed that inning with a runner on second base and no outs, I just kept feeling that we had something special here tonight.”
Woolfolk hadn’t pitched more than six innings in a game as a Cavalier before Sunday, but “I just kept telling myself in my mind that I was not going to make the mistake that I made in 2021 against Mississippi State [in the College World Series],” O’Connor said, “when I took Griff McGarry out of the game just because of what I felt like his pitch count was and Mississippi State ended up scoring five runs to win a pivotal game in Omaha.”
Ference, a transfer from Division III Salisbury, caught all three games in the regional. He said noted the “sense of calm confidence radiating from” Woolfolk during warmups, and that confidence proved to be well-founded.
“It’s the best I’ve seen him all year,” Ference said, “and it was the best situation too.”
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