By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
OMAHA, Neb. — The Virginia Cavaliers harbor no illusions. They know that, after dropping their opening game in the Men’s College World Series, they’re in an undesirable position.
“It’s tough,” junior right-fielder Casey Saucke said after UVA’s 3-2 loss to ACC foe North Carolina at Charles Schwab Field Omaha.
“You come here and you want to do a job and that’s, first of all, win the very first game,” Saucke said. “It’s tough to advance when you don’t win the first game, but we’re still in it and we’re gonna do everything that we can to win however many games it takes to move on to the next round and be in the national championship.”
In an elimination game Sunday, Virginia (46-16) will face another ACC team, Florida State (47-16), at 2 p.m. ET. Tennessee, the NCAA tournament’s overall No. 1 seed, rallied to stun FSU 12-11 in the second game Friday.
This will be the Cavaliers’ second clash with the Seminoles in about three weeks. In the ACC tournament, FSU defeated Virginia 12-7 in Charlotte, N.C.
The MCWS opener, played under sunny skies on a hot afternoon, was a back-and-forth affair Friday afternoon. The Wahoos led the Tar Heels 2-1 after six innings but gave up a run in the seventh and then lost in the ninth on Vance Honeycutt’s two-out RBI single.
“We’re disappointed,” UVA head coach Brian O’Connor said. “We’re frustrated because we just don’t believe that we played a very good baseball game today —not to take anything away from North Carolina. They pitched very, very well.”
So did the Cavaliers. Starter Evan Blanco worked 6.2 innings and allowed only two runs against a UNC team that came in averaging 8.7 per game.
“I’m just really, really proud of Evan,” O’Connor said. “You can see why we started him in the opener. He had a fantastic day and was ready to pitch and managed some situations and gave us an opportunity to win.”
Chase Hungate, who took over for Blanco in the seventh, gave up only two hits, but both came in the bottom of the ninth.
Pinch-hitter Jackson Van De Brake led off with a double inside the right-field line and then moved to third on a sacrifice bunt. After Hungate retired Colby Wilkerson on a fly ball that catcher Jacob Ference snared in foul territory, Honeycutt did what he’s done so often for UNC (48-14) this season.
“I think everyone in the [home] dugout knew he was going to come through,”…