UVA BASEBALL: Virginia slips past North Carolina

By Jay Jenkins

Published: May 12, 2008

It did not have the flair of point guard Sean Singletary’s buzzer-beating floater against Duke a year ago, but it brought an identical late-game result.
Virginia first baseman Jeremy Farrell’s two-run bloop single that splashed into the soggy grass between the foul line and an incoming right fielder came just minutes before a weather-related stoppage at Davenport Field.
With both teams aware that a delay for lightning was a matter of minutes away, Farrell lifted the Cavaliers to a 5-4 victory in the sixth — and final — inning over second-ranked North Carolina.
The win, however, was not official until Tony Maners, the chief of the three-man umpiring crew, ruled that the field would be unplayable at
4:25 p.m. Virginia’s coaches and support staff raced to get the tarp on the field and the two teams tried to wait out the storm to no avail.
Regardless of how the win was obtained, Virginia coach Brian O’Connor was aware of its importance — the Cavaliers lacked a win over a ranked opponent prior to the contest.
“Whether we played that game as a six-inning game or a nine-inning game is not important. What happened in those six innings is what’s important,” O’Connor said. “We fought back twice and we got some big hits and we didn’t cave in when things didn’t go our way.
“That’s what we need to continue to do, because that is what it is going to take from this point out.”
Assured of just seven games, three of which will be in the ACC Tournament, Virginia helped its standing in the eyes’ of the NCAA selection committee and improved to 34-17 overall, 14-13 in the ACC and secured a top-six seed at the league tourney.
The win did not come without drama that included one disgruntled skipper, one ejected North Carolina pitcher and a spirited race to put the tarp on the field from every member of Virginia’s athletic department in attendance.
It was widely known inside the
stadium that North Carolina coach Mike Fox questioned the decision not to play a doubleheader on Saturday or to start Sunday’s earlier than originally scheduled.
“I believe you have to make the decisions that are the best with the information, and if I would have known at 3:25 [p.m.] that it was going to rain, I would have decided [Saturday] to move the game up,” O’Connor said. “But that’s not the information that we had. I know there was a percentage chance that it could come in during the day, but we haven’t had a game rained out all year.
“We play this weather game here all the time.”
O’Connor pointed back to a contest with Wake Forest, a contest that appeared headed for a rainout prior to its completion in extra innings.
“It’s frustrating,” O’Connor said. “It is one of the toughest things that we have to deal with, making these decisions.”
As in the Wake Forest game, Virginia finished victorious with late heroics.
After stranding 18 runners on base in the first two games of the series, both of which were losses, the Cavaliers finally found enough timely hitting. That, of course, included Farrell’s hit in the pivotal sixth inning off North Carolina’s left-handed reliever Brian Moran just moments after it appeared that he would strike out on a borderline pitch.
“I just wanted to put a good swing on the ball,” Farrell said. “He made a couple of good pitches, two balls inside, and I worked it to a 3-2 count, blooped one to right and luckily it fell.”
Farrell, a junior, claimed that the impending weather was not in his mind, but the stadium’s public address announcer had warned fans of the oncoming lightning.
Frustrated with the umpire’s ruling on the borderline pitches that kept Farrell’s at-bat alive, Moran could be seen mouthing at home plate umpire Frank Sylvester after Tyler Cannon and Greg Miclat crossed the plate and he was promptly ejected from the game.
Virginia would not have needed the late heroics if North Carolina had not rallied for a pair of runs in the top of the sixth off Virginia reliever Neal Davis.
The Cavaliers appeared to have taken command of the game in the fourth inning after scoring three runs, two of which came on a throwing error by North Carolina second baseman Kyle Seager towards his shortstop on a potential inning-ending double play.
Virginia added the final run in the frame on a squeeze bunt from Patrick Wingfield that turned into an infield hit after he beat the ball to first.
Winning in an emotionally-thrilling fashion did not solve all of Virginia’s woes. The team still left 10 runners on base, had an errant throw to the plate to allow an earned run and committed an error.
“Although we won the ballgame, we are not doing the things that are going to win at championship time,” O’Connor said. “We showed flashes of it today with a few clutch hits, but not enough of them. Not the hits that North Carolina is getting to put themselves in that position.
“Hopefully, as we move over the next week or two, we get those.”
Davis earned the win on the mound for Virginia, improving to 4-0. Moran (0-1) took the loss for UNC after retiring just two batters.
Virginia will host VMI on Tuesday at 6 p.m. before closing out the regular season with a three-game series against Georgia Tech on Thursday.
The winner of the league series will enter the ACC Tournament as the fifth seed.