No. 23 Baseball Pounds Mount St. Mary’s, 11-1

Courtesy: Jim Daves/UVa Media Relations Jeremy Farrell notched his third career four-hit game Tuesday vs. Mount St. Mary's.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Jeremy Farrell (Jr., Westlake, Ohio) went 4-for-5 with a home run and two doubles as the No. 23 Virginia baseball team rung up an 11-1 win Tuesday night over Mount St. Mary’s. Virginia scored in each of the first five innings to jump out to a big lead and used strong pitching to coast from there.

Farrell notched his third career four-hit game and also scored twice and drove in two to lead the Cavaliers’ 16-hit attack. After missing a month because of injury, Phil Gosselin (Fr., West Chester, Pa.) returned to the Virginia lineup and went 3-for-4 with three RBI. Franco Valdes (So., Miami, Fla.) and Greg Miclat (Jr., Concord, N.C.) each added two hits. Tommy Flynn had a three-hit game for Mount St. Mary’s, which finished with seven hits.

Virginia pitchers were strong as well, racking up a season-high 15 strikeouts. Robert Poutier (Sr., Yorktown, Va.) improved to 2-0 after starting and pitching 5.0 innings while surrendering one run, five hits and a walk with five strikeouts. The UVa bullpen – Kevin Arico (Fr., Flemington, N.J.), Brad Grove (Jr., Glen Allen, Va.), Jake Rule (Sr., Winchester, Va.) and Michael Schwimer (Sr., Alexandria, Va.) – combined to strike out 10 and allow just two baserunners over the final four innings.

Kent Worthington (1-2) started for the Mount and went 2.0 innings, giving up three earned runs, four hits and two walks while striking out three. The Mount used six pitchers in the game.

The Mount (12-26) grabbed the early lead with a first-inning RBI double from Josh Vittek, but Virginia (33-15) countered with two runs in its half of the first on a sacrifice fly from Dan Grovatt (Fr., Tabernacle, N.J.) and a run-scoring double from Farrell.

In the second, David Coleman (Fr., Richmond, Va.) brought home Tyler Cannon (So., Pigeon Forge, Tenn.) on a groundout, and the Cavaliers added another run in the third on a Cannon sacrifice fly to push the lead to 4-1.

Virginia scored four runs in the fourth inning to add some more cushion. With one out and the bases loaded, Gosselin hit an RBI single and Valdes followed with a run-scoring single. Cannon then walked with the bases loaded to force in another run, and Mount pitcher Colin Stuver balked on his first pitch of the game to bring in Gosselin and give UVa an 8-1 edge.

The Cavaliers played add-on in the fifth inning on a two-run single by Gosselin and scored their final run in the seventh when Farrell launched a solo home run to left-center field. The homer was Farrell’s ninth of the season.

Virginia now will take nine days off from competition as the student-athletes take their final exams. The Cavaliers return to action May 9-11 as they play host to No. 2 North Carolina.