No. 10 Virginia Travels to ODU Tuesday Before Returning Home Wednesday

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – No. 10 Virginia will wrap a four-game road stretch on Tuesday (April 16) when it plays ODU (18-17) at Harbor Park, home of the Norfolk Tides in a non-conference tilt. The Cavaliers will open a five-game homestand on Wednesday (April 17) when it hosts George Mason at Disharoon Park. Both midweek contests are schedule for 6 p.m. starts.

HOW TO FOLLOW
Watch: n/a (Tuesday) | ACCNX (Wednesday)
Listen: n/a (Tuesday | WINA – 98.9 FM/1070 AM/WINA.com (Wednesday)
Live Stats: VirginiaSports.com

Probable Starting Pitchers
Tuesday – 6 p.m.
Virginia: RHP Joe Savino (0-0, 0.00 ERA, 1.0 IP, 0 BB, 2 SO)
ODU: RHP Brandon Pond (0-2, 7.94 ERA, 17.0 IP, 6 BB, 19 SO)

Wednesday – 6 p.m.
George Mason: TBA
Virginia: TBA

LEADING OFF

• Virginia is a consensus top-10 team for the for the second time this season. The Cavaliers moved up one spot in this week’s D1Baseball.com poll and have been as high as No. 9 back in the week six poll (March 25).
• Virginia enters the midweek ranked No. 1 in the country in runs (375), hits (461) and doubles (98). Additionally, the Cavaliers have the second-highest team batting average (.346) in DI college baseball.
• UVA is one of 11 teams in the country with 28 or more wins. Of those 11 teams, four reside in the ACC.
• The Cavaliers are 15-1 against non-conference opponents this season. UVA has won 34 of its last 35 games against non-conference foes in the regular season.
• Virginia will play the last of three games scheduled against ODU this season and play at Harbor Park for the first time since 2016.
• UVA is 8-5 on the road this season and is seeking 12th away from Disharoon Park.
• Virginia is 17-3 at home this season and has won 54 of its last 62 games at Disharoon Park

AGAINST ODU

• The Cavaliers have two shutouts this season, both have come in meetings against ODU at Disharoon Park. In the Feb. 21 meeting, five pitchers combined for a four-hit shutout and most recently eight pitchers allowed just two hits on April 2 to clinch the season series.
• UVA went ahead in the all-time series, 35-34-1 against ODU with an 4-0 win on April 2. The Cavaliers have won nine of the last 10 meetings and are 14-8 against the Monarchs under head coach Brian O’Connor.
• Kevin Jaxel earned the win in the first meeting of the year, the first of his team-leading four wins. Jaxel stranded four runners between the fifth and sixth in a total of 1.2 innings of work. Harrison Didawick hit his third home run in four games and went 2-for-4 with a double and two RBI to pace the UVA offense.
• Back on April 2, UVA broke through after six innings of scoreless baseball on a RBI single by Luke Hanson to ignite a four-run, two-out rally. The eight Cavalier pitchers in the contest combined for 14 strikeouts, tied for the most in a game this season (Wichita State – Feb. 23).

AGAINST GEORGE MASON

• Virginia is 27-12 against the Patriots in an all-time series that dates back to 1978.
• The Cavaliers have won six-straight games against the George Mason, including a 7-2 victory in the 2004 Charlottesville Regional, the first NCAA Tournament win of Brian O’Connor’s coaching career.
• Virginia and George Mason met for the first time in 12 years back on April 27, 2022. The Cavaliers erased a 1-0 first inning deficit and then a 6-4 George Mason lead in the third inning before pulling away in 17-7 victory. Jake Gelof hit his 16th home run of the season in a 3-for-4 effort at the plate.

OFF TO THE RACES IN LOUISVILLE

• Virginia matched the school record for runs in a three-game ACC series, previously set in 2009 at Wake Forest. UVA scored 18 runs in the opener, eight runs in the middle game and 21 in the finale.

• The 47 runs scored by Virginia are the most in any three-game series since plating 60 in a three-game series against Cornell in 2022.
• The Cavaliers hit 11 home runs in the series, five in the opener, one in the middle game and six in the series finale. UVA has hit five or more home runs in a game, three times this year. Three different players had multi-home run games in the series – Henry Ford, Jacob Ference and Luke Hanson.
• The 21 runs on Friday were the most by any ACC team in a conference game this season and the most by the Cavaliers in a ACC game since scoring 27 against Maryland on April 23, 2010.
• Virginia scored 10 runs in the ninth inning in Friday’s opener, the most in a single-inning this season and the most ninth-inning runs in any game over the last 24 years.

POTENT ATTACK

• The Virginia offense comes into the midweek ranked No. 1 in the country in runs scored (375), hits (461) and doubles (98). The Cavaliers’ team batting average (.346) and 10.4 runs per game rank second in all of DI college baseball.
• UVA also ranks in the top-10 in the nation in slugging percentage (7th – .579) and on-base percentage (5th – .438) for a total of seven different categories.
• Virginia’s 461 hits are 32 more that Texas Tech who has the second-most in the in the country.
• The Cavaliers are one of three teams in the country averaging over 10 runs per game – Wofford (11.0) and Tennessee (10.3).
• Virginia scored double-digit runs 19 times this season and is 17-2 when scoring 10 or more runs in a game.
• UVA leads the ACC in batting average, doubles, hits, on-base percentage, runs and scoring.
• Last season, Virginia led the country in batting average, doubles and hits. It ranked in the top-10 in seven different offensive categories.
• Virginia is tied for the second-highest scoring margin of any ACC team and 10th best in the NCAA, outscoring its opponents by average of 4.0 runs per game.

Highest Scoring Margin in ACC
Florida State +5.1
Duke +4.4
Virginia +4.0
North Carolina +4.0

ON THE MOUND

• Joe Savino will make his second start and second appearance for the Cavaliers on Tuesday against ODU. His only other action this season was against ODU back on April 2 where he pitched the first inning of a 4-0 shutout.
• Savino threw 22 pitches, allowed one hit and struck out two in his Cavalier debut. It marked his first start on the mound since May 13, 2022.
• Savino is a graduate transfer from Elon where he posted a 3.94 ERA over 50 appearances and 169 innings pitched in three seasons. He struck out 193 batters and walked only 32.
• Last season for the Phoenix he was one of the top relievers in the CAA, earning an all-conference honorable mention distinction.

HOOS DIG THE LONG BALL

• The 12-home run outburst in Louisville vaulted the Cavaliers into the top-16 in the country and now rank fourth in the ACC with 66 long balls. The 66 homers are fourth-most in a single season in program history.

Most UVA Home Runs in a Single Season

• Henry Ford added three more to his season home run total in three games at Louisville and now has 13, two shy of matching UVA single-season freshman record held by former Cavalier big leaguer Mark Reynolds who hit 15 in 2002. One more home run for Ford and he will join Reynolds as the only two freshmen on UVA’s top-10 single-season home run list.
• Harrison Didawick has 15 home runs in his first 36 games, tied for the second-most in the ACC and tied for 11th-most in the country. One more home run and he will be tied with Jarrett Parker (2009) and Joe Koshansky for the fifth-most in a single season every by a UVA hitter.

Most Home Runs in a Single Season (UVA History)

• Six different Cavaliers have put forth multi-home run games this season – Jacob Ference (3), Henry Ford (3), Harrison Didawick (1), Ethan Anderson (1), Luke Hanson (1) and Casey Saucke (1).
• Virginia went four games without a home run before blasting five in the opener against North Carolina on April 5. It marked the longest home run drought since a four-game spell between March 27 – April 21, 2021. The Cavaliers broke out of that homerless spell in 2021 with a grand slam by Nic Kent in an 8-2, game two at Georgia Tech. The win proved significant as UVA went on to win 14 of its next 20 ACC games after starting league play 4-12, a run that sparked a berth into College World Series for the fifth time in program history.
• Henry Ford broke UVA’s latest home run drought with his first career grand slam and the second by a Cavalier this season (Henry Godbout vs. GW on March 6). It was the first of three long balls for Ford in the contest, the first three-homer game by a UVA hitter since 2002 (Dan Street vs. ODU).