After a rough start on Friday the Cavaliers rebounded on Saturday and Sunday to salvage what had the making to be an awful weekend.
On Friday, UVa's top pitcher, Danny Hultzen was out-dueled by Wright State's Alex Kaminsky. Although the Cavaliers lost 2-1, Danny had a stellar outing. Hultzen went 7 innings while giving up on 1 earned run and striking out 9. The problem on Friday was that the usual offensive powered Hoos couldn't get anything going against Wright State. They were only able to manufacture 1 run on 8 hits. The other problem on Friday were the errors. The usually stellar defensive team had 3 errors that lead to one of the unearned runs for Hultzen.
All was not lost though as the Cavaliers regained their composer and flexed their muscles against Dartmouth on Saturday and Sunday as well as against Wright State on Sunday. Averaging nearly 13 runs over the next 2 days the Hoos handled their business and won the last 3 games over the weekend including a 13-3 victory over the Wright State team that beat the Cavs on Friday. The only shaky thing the rest of the weekend was the 11 runs that the pitching staff gave up over the last 3 games of the weekend. The Cavalier pitching staff will need to regain their dominance on Wednesday and regain momentum against William and Mary as they head into of of the best matchups in College Baseball this season with the Hoos traveling to Tallahassee to take on FSU this weekend.
Although UVa did lose one of its 4 games this weekend to a sub .500 team in Wright State, the pollsters were not alarmed by the loss and kept the Hoos in the #1 spot in both the Rivals and Baseball America polls. Collegiate Baseball dropped UVa a spot from 4 to 5 but they remain only 5 points behind top ranked LSU. FSU, the Cavaliers opponent this weekend, comes into that poll at the #4 spot. The National Collegiate Baseball Writers and ESPN/USA Today writers poll dropped the Cavaliers the farthest as they fell from #2 to #4 in both polls.
This week UVa travels to William and Mary on Wednesday to take on a surprisingly strong Tribe team. Although W&M comes in with a 5-4 record, 3 of those losses came against a top 5 LSU team in Baton Rouge. While they did lose all three games to the Bayou Bengals, they never lost by more than 3 runs. The Cavs will certainly not take the Tribe lightly this Wed and certainly not be looking forward to their trip to Florida. Having said that, I don't expect us to lose but the game will more than likely be a little too close for comfort. My prediction: 6-4 Cavalier victory.