Virginia Baseball Takes Series, Wins 9-0

With inclement weather in the forecast, it was imperative that Virginia get on the board early given the chance of a shortened game. And that is exactly what the Hoos did.

Virginia jumped on the Irish early batting around in the bottom of the first and scoring six runs. The heart of Virginia’s order did what it does best, putting three runs on the board before an out was recorded. Ernie Clement led off the inning with a double and scored when Andy Weber followed that up with a double of his own. Adam Haseley then hit his team-leading 12th home run of the year, a bomb to right that made the score 3-0. Pavin Smith then walked and advanced to third on Robbie Coman’s single to left center. After a strike out by Caleb Knight, Cameron Simmons reached on a throwing error by the Notre Dame shortstop allowing Smith to score. Then with runners at first and third, Coman was able to steal home as the Irish tried to throw out Simmons on a steal of second of his own. Finally the Hoos put their sixth run of the inning on the board when Simmons scored on a single to left by Jake McCarthy.

Virginia got three more in the third thanks to a solo home run by Knight then a two-RBI triple by McCarthy scored Justin Novak and Simmons. For Knight, the home run was his third on the year and also upped his batting average to 0.407 on the season.

With the rain coming down harder by the minute, Murdock settled in after some early jams to give the Hoos exactly what they needed. For the second week in a row, the first year went deep into the game, this time throwing 6.1. On the day, he gave up no runs, on four hits, four walks, and three strike outs. Murdock gave way to Alec Bettinger in the sixth who got Murdock out of a jam to preserve the shutout through seven innings.

At that point the umpires decided the rains were coming down too hard, so the tarp came out and the teams waited 27 minutes before play resumed. From there, Bettinger took over, shutting things down in the eighth and ninth only giving up one hit and tallying three strike outs.

Simmons and McCarthy each had three hits on the day, while Knight had two including the home run.

The Hoos wrap up their six game home stand with a mid-week game against Redford on Tuesday before heading on the road to Florida State for a three game set next weekend.