The Cavalier baseball team held out to play their worst game of the season last night against the USC Gamecocks. Against North Carolina, the 'Hoos were competitive. Last night, nothing went right and the team was unable to make their own breaks.
Judging from the stats and what I haven't forgotten yet from watching it last night, I imagine only four Cavaliers can say they even had a decent game. John Hicks and Chris Taylorperformed fairly well at the plate. Hicks had a home run and scored the lone run for UVa while Taylor went two for four. Cody Winiarski and Kyle Crockett performed well on the mound each holding USC scoreless in their time pitching for the 'Hoos.
Sometimes you've got it and sometimes you don't. Anyone who watched the game last night will almost certainly say that the Cavaliers were far from "it" and USC had about the best game that they could have asked for. USC's Coach Tanner even said that after the game:
Coach O'Connor knew it in the postgame as well,We played probably one of our better games of the year tonight, and we certainly needed it playing a team the quality of Virginia. We pitched extremely well. We played really tough defense, had some timely hitting. Really probably can't play any better than that.
There isn't really anything else that needs to be said. USC played the best game they have played all season and UVa played the worst. A .980 fielding percentage on the year and two errors are made in the first inning leading to three unearned runs? John Barr hadn't hit into a double play all year and he hit into two against USC? Baseball gods were clearly not in favor of the 'Hoos last night.
Well, we're obviously very disappointed in our play this evening. South Carolina, really, quite frankly beat us in every phase of the game tonight. Overall, we just didn't do the fundamental things that it takes to win a college baseball game at this level. It's pretty simple, and South Carolina did.
The 'Hoos will now turn their attention again to the Cal Bears whom they defeated on Sunday. Cal is coming off a 7-3 victory over Texas A&M on Tuesday afternoon. Don't hold me to this but, I imagine Danny Hultzen will be the starter for the 'Hoos hoping he can turn in an exceptional performance. If Danny can go seven or eight innings and the bats can give UVa a solid lead to turn over to the bullpen, Tyler Wilson would be slated to start Friday against South Carolina.
Whatever happened last night (I forgot already), the 'Hoos will have to have a short memory and forget about it. I imagine that's exactly what Coach O'Connor told them last night as they were getting off the bus. Time to forget and time to move on to Cal. There is work still left to be done in Omaha.
"that's why it's(College World Series) a double elimination tournament. We'll look forward to showing what we're capable of doing on Thursday night." -Coach O'Connor