Virginia headed west for NCAAs

By Jay Jenkins

Published: May 27, 2008

As Virginia completed a pair of games well after 1 a.m. last week at the ACC baseball tournament in Jacksonville, Fla., a joke spread around the stadium that the Cavaliers were playing on Pacific Daylight Time.
On Monday, that quip became reality — Virginia was officially shipped out west for the opening round of the NCAA tournament.
“We have been playing West Coast games for a while so we are accustomed to it,” chuckled Virginia coach Brian O’Connor. 
His team, which is 38-21 overall, drew an at-large bid and the No. 3 seed in the four-team Fullerton regional in California.
UVa will open play Friday at 7 p.m. (EST) against second-seeded UCLA (31-25), and Cal State Fullerton (37-19), the regional’s top seed and the No. 5 national seed, will host Rider (29-26) at 11 p.m.
After winning contests over North Carolina and Florida State to advance to the ACC tournament’s title game, O’Connor knew his team was securely positioned to play in the postseason.
“I feel like we have earned it over the last three weeks and that says something about this team,” O’Connor said. “To play a series with North Carolina and then with Georgia Tech and then play North Carolina, Florida State, Wake Forest and Miami as tough as we did down the stretch run says a lot about this team.
“We earned this opportunity to go to Fullerton to the regional. Our last 15 games have been against some incredible teams. We have been battle-tested and we have played some of the best teams in the country and the same thing is going to be out at Fullerton.”
As the regional’s host and a national seed, Fullerton is a heavy favorite. The Titans advanced to the College World Series in each of the past two seasons and have won four national titles.
UCLA may be just as dangerous. Loaded with tons of professional prospects, the Bruins entered the season as the nation’s top-ranked team
before early-season struggles led to their departure from the national poll.
“Cal State Fullerton has a rich tradition with its baseball program,” O’Connor said, “and we know that UCLA has a very, very good program and it has a deep in tradition, too.”
After sliding onto the bubble late in the season, earning a fifth straight bid was “rewarding” for the senior class, said pitcher Pat McAnaney.
“During the course of the season and the ups and downs, that thought comes to your mind and you think, ‘What if we were to not make a regional?’ That would be a tough way to go out after making it three straight years,” he added. “Hoping that this year is the year we get over [the regional] hump and not making it would have been rough, but I think we are starting to play together as a team.
“We were all pretty confident that we were going to be in and when we found out where we were going everyone was pretty excited.”
The Fullerton regional will be one of 16 in the tournament and uses a double-elimination format. The winner of the regional will advance to meet the winner of the Stanford regional, which includes Stanford, Pepperdine, Arkansas and UC Davis.
O’Connor said he had not determined what his pitching rotation for the first two games would be, but plans to do so before departing on Wednesday.
He has four options: left-handers Matt Packer and McAnaney or right-handers Andrew Carraway and Jacob Thompson.