Coming in to the weekend, nobody, including myself, expected Boston College to pose a threat to UVa. The Golden Eagles were 15-24 overall, 6-14 in conference, and had not won a meaningful series all year. The 'Hoos on the other hand, were 40-4, 18-3 in the ACC, #1 in the country, and had not dropped a series or had a true "disappointing" loss all year.
As I am sure many of you know, the Cavaliers blew out the Eagles on Friday 17-0 behind great hitting and even better pitching from Shane Halley and Danny Hultzen(#schocker and #Hultzen4GoldenSpikes). Sunday was more of the same from the 'Hoos as Will Roberts and Branden Kline combines for a 4-0 victory, the 14th shutout of the season, and yet another series victory.
Saturday is the game that I wanted to focus and comment on. As the title suggests, the 'Hoos stumbled and had an off day losing 4-5 in 11 innings. I will preface this with the fact that I was not at the game and obviously do not have the full picture of what happened. I am not sure if there were any big baserunning mistakes or poorly executed plays.
What I do know is that Boston College played better than UVa for one day. The 'Hoos didn't make a fielding error, only struck out five times, and other than the 2nd inning, didn't give up multiple runs in one inning. Most days, that would be more than enough to win. Sometimes you are the bug, sometimes you are the windshield. Saturday, UVa was the windshield.
To put it in a bit of perspective I went and looked back at some of the losses over the last three seasons:
Last season the team lost to Wright St in the third weekend of the year, lost a series to NC St., and got blown out by VMI 3-12 in a midweek game! That team went on to the super regionals and ended with a 51-14 record.
In 2009, widely considered to be the most successful team in program history, we lost single games to Maryland, Boston College, and STONY BROOK. On top of those, we lost a season ending series to VPISU! VPISU! We went on to win the ACC and advance to the College World Series
The least successful of the last five years, 2008, we were almost atrocious. Midweek losses to George Washington, William & Mary, Coastal Carolina, and Towson. Anyone know how many ACC series we won that year? Try four. Out of ten ACC series we won four. That year we lost to Miami in the ACC Tournament Championship and got jobbed in the Regional at Cal State Fullerton thanks to the umpires.
As UVa fans, I that understand we like to jump ship at the first sign of weakness or trouble. We've been shown not to believe in teams. Fortunately, the baseball, tennis, and maybe one or two other teams, should not be held to that. The baseball season has 56 games in a regular season. One game is certainly not going to make or break this season.
The 'Hoos didn't play an A+ game while BC did. Credit BC, don't discredit the #1 ranked UVa team.