LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Nearly every Louisville fan was on their feet, clapping in unison as Virginia was down to its final strike.
More than that, UVa was down to its final straw. It’s hard to call this game a must-win for the Cavaliers, but losing would have painted a bleak outlook on their postseason prospects.
Virginia hadn’t scored all day. Cardinals starter Bobby Miller pitched 8 1/3 untouchable innings. Throughout the first two games of the series, Louisville had scored in six innings. Virginia responded the next inning with a run in five of them. But there was no responding to Miller on Sunday.
However, when Louisville went to lefty reliever Reid Detmers to close it out, there was an opening for the Wahoos. And with two outs, and two strikes, Alex Tappen doubled home Andy Weber to tie the game, then Brendan Rivoli drove in the game-winning run with an RBI single right after that. Virginia stole a 2-1 win from the jaws of seemingly certain defeat.
“It was nuts,” Tappen said. “I shouldn’t have been doing this. But I came around third and I kind of had my tongue out, and I was like, ‘Let’s go, we just took the lead.’ I knew I was going to score.”
There were other chances for UVa to get an earlier run. The Cavaliers loaded the bases in the second inning, but Jack Weiller lined out to second base to end the threat.
Tanner Morris led off the sixth inning with a double down the third-base line. But with UVa’s best hitters, Cayman Richardson, Weber and Nate Eikhoff due up, the bats fell silent. Richardson faked a bunt before flying out to a perfectly placed right fielder. Weber struck out and Eikhoff flew out to center.
While struggling to score, UVa cut down a number of potential Cardinal runs early in the game. Speedy Louisville center fielder Josh Stowers tried to score from first on a single and an errant throw, but was thrown out by a hustling Noah Murdock, who picked up the ball that had skidded to the UVa dugout. Eikhoff threw a runner out at home in the third inning that tried to score with the infield drawn in close.
Virginia employed a bullpen day of pitching, and it went very well. Murdock, making his second appearance in a return from Tommy John Surgery, pitched two shutout innings and allowed just two hits. Bobby Nicholson relieved him and allowed one run. Riley Wilson pitched two-plus shutout innings, then lefty Andrew Abbott tossed 1 1/3 shutout innings. The Cardinals left 11 runners on base.
“I thought they did a great job,” head coach Brian O’Connor said. “If any one of those guys went out there and gives up a run, you don’t win that ballgame. We did a nice job of piecing it together. I was proud of those guys.”
Pitching and defense weren’t the problem for Virginia, offense was, for almost the entire game. Miller was economical and induced a lot of weak contact. The Louisville pitcher struck out just five Cavaliers in his 8 1/3 innings of work, but UVa had 12 flyouts and eight groundouts. Miller hadn’t pitched more than six innings in a game all season.
Virginia managed the game like the must-win that it was. Sitting on the fringe of the NCAA Tournament, the Cavaliers are playing better overall baseball, but better might not translate to the postseason. Wins, and a lot of them, are going to be what does it.
“You kind of prepare for it all year long,” said Rivoli, who didn’t play much of the season, but has two game-winning hits this week. “We’re taking all our practice in the cages and stuff, it’s all for these kind of situations. Game winners and stuff like that. You come into those situations as prepared as you can be. Luckily I’ve been in that spot where I can do that.”
Needing the win, Virginia reliever Bennett Sousa got the final outs for the second-straight game — showing off his closer chops in a dominance unseen through the season’s first two months. He escaped a bases-loaded jam in the eighth inning, then worked around a leadoff hit in the ninth inning, stranding the tying run at third base.
Tappen’s fly ball to left-center field hung up. He feared the ball would die out there, which it had done all weekend. He feared the quick-footed Stowers would track it down. But it fell. And from there, UVa picked up its first road series win of the year.
If the Cavaliers were looking for a turning point this season, this game, and this weekend might have done the trick.
“We’ll find out next weekend [vs. Clemson],” O’Connor said when asked if it was a turning point. “This is our first series win on the road, and that's significant. We’ll use that use that, and we’ll build on that, and we’ll see what happens next weekend.”