UVA Baseball | Hoos Look to Take Final Step Saturday

Virginia cut K-State’s lead to 3-2 in the bottom of the fifth. O’Ferrall, who’d drawn a leadoff walk, scored on Casey Saucke’s sacrifice fly to right, and Whalen, who’d reached on an error, came home on Ford’s groundout to third.

The Cavaliers took their first lead in the sixth when O’Ferrall drove in Godbout and Ethan Anderson with a ground-rule double, but K-State answered with a solo homer in the top of the seventh to make it 4-4.

For the Wildcats, who have reached an NCAA super regional for only the second time, the bottom half of the seventh proved to be their downfall. They had a chance to turn an inning-ending double play but failed to do so, and Godbout came to the plate with runners on first and third.

The 6-foot-2, 190-pound sophomore made the Wildcats rue their defensive lapse. He hammered a pitch from reliever Cole Wisenbaker over the left-field wall to make it 7-4.

“It was a pretty special moment,” said Godbout, who’s hitting .370 with nine homers this season.

Against Boerema, Godbout had struck out in his first two at-bats, after which “I reminded him that it’s not how the game starts, it’s how the game ends,” O’Connor said.

Relievers Angelo Tonas and Matt Augustin shut out K-State in the final two innings to make sure this game ended happily for Virginia.

The Hoos look to take the final step Saturday and advance back to Omaha, Neb. Virginia’s roster includes such players as Whalen, Ford, Jacob Ference, Eric Becker and Joe Savino, all of whom were elsewhere last season, but O’Connor also has multiple veterans with College World Series experience. They’ve learned how to handle pressure situations.

“When you get to this point, you have to slow your heartbeat down,” O’Connor said. “You have to trust what you’ve done all year long and don’t make the moment too big. That’s what allows them to come from behind and find a way to win. They’re not pressing. It’s what allows somebody like Evan Blanco to go out there and understand what his job is, even [after] falling behind.”

Not since 2015, when they went on to capture the NCAA title, have the Hoos needed only two games to win a super regional.

“Listen, Kansas State is not going to go away,” O’Connor said. “They are an incredibly talented team.”

So are the…