Virginia’s Wild Ride Ends at College World Series

Image credit: Virginia OF Chris Newell celebrates (Photo courtesy of Virginia)

OMAHA—Late Thursday night, or early Friday morning to be more precise, Texas sealed a 6-2 win over Virginia to advance to the bracket final against Mississippi State Friday night. 

The loss ended Virginia’s season at 36-27 after a wild ride of a campaign. In fact, no team this season took a more circuitous route to end up right about where it was expected to be in the end. 

A preseason top-five team, the Cavaliers got off to a slow start and at one point were 4-11 in the ACC. Not only did they bounce back to get into the postseason, but they showed a knack for fighting off elimination once they got there. Prior to its elimination against Texas, Virginia had won six consecutive elimination games. 

For coach Brian O’Connor, that’s what makes this team so special. 

“What they persevered through, the resiliency that they have shown the last two months, but specifically over the last two weeks, is just remarkable,” he said. “I told them that all the teams that we have at Virginia are all special in their own way, but this one is at the top. Certainly when you win a national championship, that’s pretty special. But this team, what they were able to accomplish, based on the position that they were in two months ago and then the position they were in over the last two weeks with their backs against the wall six times—we just ran into a great club.”

That message came through clear for the players as well. 

“There’s no reason that we should come out of here with our heads down, because, I mean, we really did do something special as a group,” center fielder Chris Newell said. “From where we were at and it really says a lot about this club this year. And I’m just so proud of everybody just top to bottom. There’s really nothing else that you can ask for.”

Throughout the postseason run, Virginia had players step up left and right. Nic Kent turned in highlight reel play after highlight reel play at shortstop. Righthander Mike Vasil turned in arguably his best start of the season in a losing effort against Texas. 

After season-long struggles that pushed him down to the nine spot in the order, Newell had a hit in each of the Cavaliers’ last five postseason games, including six total hits and two home runs in the CWS. 

Kyle Teel was as good as he has been all season. He had a clutch go-ahead grand slam in the third game of the super regional against Dallas Baptist and had back-to-back three-hit games against Mississippi State and Texas in Omaha. In his last two starts, righthander Griff McGarry turned into the pitcher his stuff suggested he could be but that he hadn’t been this season. Against DBU and MSU, he threw 14.1 innings, giving up three hits and two runs with 18 strikeouts. 

“Chris Newell, I’m so incredibly proud of him and many others,” O’Connor said. “But to see the way that he performed down the stretch for us and see the way he performed in Omaha, the emergence of him, his future is so bright. And to see somebody that just didn’t—he kept fighting and he didn’t quit on himself. Griff McGarry is another great example. It’s just all of those situations where guys, they could have packed it in. And they didn’t. And that speaks to the character that they have and what they’re made of. And in baseball that will serve them well.”

The bullpen also became a huge weapon throughout the season. Sidewinding righthander Stephen Schoch was effective as the closer all season, and righthanders Blake Bales, Kyle Whitten, Matt Wyatt, Zach Messinger, plus lefthander Brandon Neeck, all turned in big outings as Virginia made its push, even if that group did seem to lose steam as the postseason games piled up. 

“I don’t want to take anything away from any team, what Mississippi State did or Texas did. They’re great clubs,” O’Connor said. “But I just felt like some of our guys were on fumes for what they’ve had to do down the stretch run, not our position players, but some of our arms. I think about Blake Bales and he had a fantastic year for us and didn’t appear here in Omaha and didn’t appear in the Super Regional. And Schoch was a little banged up, some other guys that it kind of took the toll on them. But that said, I still felt like we certainly had enough to contend for the national championship. But I think it kind of wore them down a little bit, for sure.”

Getting back to Omaha was an important step for a Virginia program that stumbled after its 2015 national title. The 2016 and 2017 seasons brought postseason appearances that ended short of the CWS and the Cavaliers missed the postseason altogether in 2018 and 2019. 

Missing the postseason again in 2021, which looked like a near certainty as recently as a couple of months ago, wouldn’t necessarily have been reason for alarm, but right or wrong, O’Connor understands that programs are judged on the ability to keep the standard high once a certain level is reached. 

“It’s important to be back in the NCAA Tournament and very important to get to Omaha for the future,” he said. “But for me, it was about this group. It was this team’s experience. It was guys that will never wear this uniform again. It was their last opportunity to achieve something that is really, really great. And I’m just happy for them—happy for them that they did what they did, had the experience of playing in Omaha, to compete for a national championship. And they’re winners. Now, the ripple effect of that, obviously, is when you make it to Omaha, it continues to—unfortunately it’s this way—but it validates the elite level of your program. And that’s what these kids did. That’s the add-on for this. I wish it wasn’t that way because there were many years we were playing in the NCAA Tournament and No. 1 seeds couldn’t break through to get to Omaha. You felt like you needed to get here to validate the level of your program that you’re a great college baseball program. And fortunately we did that again.”

The weight of taking that baton and running with it now falls to a young core that emerged over the last two seasons, led by Newell, Teel, first baseman Jake Gelof, second baseman Max Cotier and lefthander Nate Savino. Those four position players are a great start toward a fearsome lineup, and Savino could develop into one of the best starting pitchers in college baseball if he puts it all together. 

Even as the Cavaliers will deal with turnover this offseason, including the likely departures of McGarry, Vasil, Kent and lefthander Andrew Abbott to the draft, there’s little evidence that we should expect any sort of rebuilding job in Charlottesville next season.