Devin Ortiz hadn’t been the starting pitcher in a game since his senior year of high school, and he had made only two relief appearances this season for Virginia.
It didn’t matter. That fit the storyline of UVa’s crazy regional championship run even better.
On Tuesday, Ortiz, now a college senior, started and threw four scoreless innings for the Cavaliers and then crushed a 10th-inning pitch from Old Dominion’s Aaron Holiday into the left field stands to send UVa to a 4-3 victory over the No. 1-seeded Monarchs (44-16), capping an improbable Wahoos run in Columbia, S.C., that saw Virginia lose its first game and be forced to win four straight contests to advance to the super regionals.
“This program and its legacy is something like no other. This is what I came here to do,” Ortiz said. “I wanted to come to Virginia, I wanted to play in these big situations, and I wanted to help my team win — most important. Something like today is something you dream about.”
Devin Ortiz gets doused by his teammates.
It’s the seventh regional championship for UVa (33-24) in coach Brian O’Connor’s 18 seasons in Charlottesville. It was an unlikely result for a team that was 4-12 in the ACC on April 1.
“We’ve had some really special clubs that have done some special things,” O’Connor said. “But I tell you this team is on top because of where they had been and where they are now.”
Virginia will face fellow No. 3 seed Dallas Baptist in the super regional round back in Columbia starting today at noon. The Patriots won the Fort Worth, Texas, Regional. Game 2 is Sunday at noon, and if necessary, Game 3 is Monday at 1 p.m.
Close loss in Game 1
Sometimes in sports, you just have to shake your head. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone outside the program that thought Virginia would win the regional after it lost its first game with its best pitcher starting. But that’s what happened. Andrew Abbott pitched well against South Carolina on Friday, but the Gamecocks edged the Cavaliers 4-3 in a game UVa probably should’ve won.
The Gelof brothers almost single-handedly won the game on offense. Jake hit a solo homer in the second inning to make it 1-1, and then Zack matched him to make it 2-1. And in the fourth, Zack’s single scored Jake to make it 3-1.
Abbott (8-6, 2.82 ERA) allowed a first-inning solo home run to South Carolina slugger Wes Clarke, who led the nation in HRs. Then he settled in, retiring 13 of the next 14 batters. But the senior lefty ran into trouble in the sixth inning with two outs, when consecutive ground-rule doubles by the Gamecocks tied the game. Kyle Whitten came on in relief, but Colin Burgess’ RBI ended up being the game-winning hit.
Righting the ship against Jacksonville
In their second game, the ‘Hoos faced Jacksonville on Saturday. The Dolphins were just 16-33 but had barely lost to Old Dominion, 4-3, in their regional opener.
Virginia led early, but Jacksonville (16-34) scored four runs in the third inning to go up 5-2, and it became clear the Cavaliers would have to win this one with offense. And that’s what they were able to do, 13-8, by scoring a steady stream of runs. UVa put up at least one run in every inning except the seventh, going ahead for good with five runs in the sixth. Max Cotier had three RBIs, and Virginia got two each from Kyle Teel, Ortiz, Jake Gelof (HR), and Chris Newell (HR).
Starter Mike Vasil could not get one out in the third and was responsible for all five runs up to that point. But Whitten entered and pitched better than he did Friday, though he still gave up two runs. Eventually, Nate Savino (3-3, 3.75) steadied things, picking up the win by pitching 4⅔ innings and giving up one run on two hits.
Sweet revenge
On Sunday, Virginia faced South Carolina again in a win-or-go-home situation in front of the Gamecocks’ home crowd. Of course, this was not new for the Cavaliers, who were in that mode right after they lost to the Gamecocks on Friday. South Carolina was edged 2-1 by Old Dominion on Saturday.
Virginia had to reach deep into its pitching staff, and Matt Wyatt (3-1, 4.50) got the start and the ball rolling on some incredible performances from unlikely names. Wyatt had started only one game all season, but on Sunday, he pitched five scoreless innings and gave up only two hits while striking out five and walking one.
UVa supported his effort by scoring a run in each of the first three innings. Ortiz, Alex Tappen (HR), and Nic Kent had the RBIs.
One of Virginia’s best relievers all year, Blake Bales, entered the game in the sixth after being unavailable Friday with an injured shoulder. But after just a few pitches, Bales pointed to that same shoulder. It just didn’t feel right. He was able to get one strikeout, and then he walked his other batter, who later scored.
Zach Messinger came in and pitched 1⅓ innings, allowing one run (a homer) on five hits. Bales and Messinger did just enough to set things up for Stephen Schoch, who is now a minor national celebrity thanks to his moxie, personality, and pitching ability.
Schoch pitched brilliantly over the final 2⅓ innings, allowing no hits and just one walk while striking out five. With a runner on first, he struck out Joe Satterfield to end the game and then hurled his glove into the outfield, his trademark celebration. Virginia eliminated South Carolina 3-2 in front of more than 4,000 hostile fans. The Gamecocks finished the season 34-23. Schoch became a breakout star and a walking promo for Dippin’ Dots with this interview:
McGarry, Neeck mow down 24 Monarchs
Later Sunday, UVa faced ODU, which entered the contest leading the nation with 103 home runs. It would take some fine pitching to beat the Monarchs twice and advance. Though Ortiz, Schoch, and Wyatt all stood out for their performances over the weekend, perhaps Virginia’s best and most unlikely breakout performance came from a pitcher who made a name for himself in the first victory over ODU, and it wasn’t the starter.
That’s not to say Griff McGarry didn’t do a good job as the starter. He actually did pretty well. McGarry went 3⅓ innings, giving up three runs on two hits and four walks while striking out eight, including the first six batters he faced. When he was pulled in the fourth with a blister on his finger, Virginia still had a 5-3 edge.
But then Brandon Neeck came on in relief and began dealing. He pitched the final 5⅔ innings and set a Virginia NCAA tournament single-game record with 16 strikeouts, which also tied Abbott for the most in a game this season and is second all time behind Nathan Kirby’s 18 strikeouts versus Pittsburgh in April 2014. Neeck and McGarry’s combined 24 strikeouts were the most for UVa in any game in its history.
Ortiz (HR) and Logan Michaels had two RBIs each for the Cavaliers, who took down the Monarchs pretty easily, 8-3, setting the stage for what was supposed to be Monday’s finale.
But Mother Nature had other ideas. Monday’s game was originally set for 7 p.m. before being moved up to 5 p.m. That didn’t help. Mother Nature brought the rain and won, and the game was postponed until Tuesday.
Ortiz was ready to go
Ortiz, who knew he was going to be the starting pitcher by that point, said that Monday “felt like a nightmare, not knowing whether we [were] going to play or not. You’re trying to stay focused, and your emotions go up and down; the butterflies are in and out.”
But with Tuesday’s game set for 9 a.m., Ortiz said he had no time to really get nervous.
“Today the butterflies weren’t there as much because I didn’t have time to really think about it,” he said. “I just kind of woke up, opened my eyes, eat breakfast, and get ready to compete.”
It must have paid off because Ortiz allowed only three base runners over his four innings (one hit, two walks) and struck out six.
After the second ODU win, O’Connor praised second-year pitching coach Drew Dickinson for the belief he has in his pitchers and the quality of the depth he has helped produce throughout the staff. O’Connor said that Ortiz, who did not pitch at all in the shortened 2020 season, had been throwing more recently in practice — to get ready for a moment like this.
The coach said the conversation he had with Dickinson went like this: “Hey, if we fall in the losers’ bracket of this tournament, Devin Ortiz is going to start, and we’re going to need to him to go four or five innings, so let’s extend him today and get him prepared for that.”
Back-and-forth affair
As good as Ortiz was, ODU starter Hunter Gregory was even better. Gregory was perfect through 5⅓ innings before Michaels knocked a ground-rule double in the sixth. Still, Virginia didn’t score after ODU coach Chris Finwood decided to pull Gregory and bring in Jason Hartline out of the bullpen. Hartline got the last out, but it ended up being a move Finwood maybe should not have made so quickly.
Messinger came on in relief and had no issues in the fifth. But in the sixth, with Abbott having entered out of the pen, ODU scored its first run with the help of a throwing error by Cotier at second base. But it was Cotier who got things started in the seventh with a leadoff walk against Hartline, and Cotier later scored on a fielder’s choice off a hit by Kent. Then Tappen singled home Teel to put UVa up 2-1.
ODU wasn’t done yet. Schoch came on in the seventh, and in the eighth, he got into a jam. He walked his first batter then struck out the next two. After another walk, Brock Gagliardi recorded an RBI single to tie the game. Then yet another error on Cotier, this one fielding, kept the inning alive, and Tommy Bell singled to right field to put ODU up 3-2.
But it could’ve been worse, had Teel not made one of the top plays of the weekend, gunning down Gagliardi at the plate to preserve the one-run margin.
“Probably other than Ortiz hitting that ball out, the biggest play of the game,” O’Connor said. “They had momentum, right? Kyle Teel showed his arm off and threw a strike to keep it within reach.”
In the eighth, Zack Gelof reached via walk and advanced to second on a Teel single. ODU pitcher Noah Deane lost control on back-to-back pitches, and Gelof scored on the second wild pitch to tie the game, setting up Ortiz’s 10th-inning heroics after a scoreless ninth.
Schoch allowed only one other base runner in the last two innings while picking up the win.
“He’s our guy,” O’Connor said of Schoch. “The guy came here as a graduate student to be on that mound and have that opportunity. I wasn’t going to take the ball away from him … He’s continued to deliver, and he’s got incredible moxie and an ability to wiggle out of difficult situations. And he proved that again today.”
A special group
Schoch was part of a staff that mostly held down the fearsome Monarchs, who, in addition to the nation-leading home run tally, also boasted a top-20 batting average. The Monarchs managed to go just 11 of 68 (.162) at the plate and struck out 39 times in the two games.
That was just one storyline during a weekend full of them, with players stepping up and answering the bell each time it rang, etching their names into the storied history of Virginia baseball.
“I’ve said it the last few games, that it’s tournaments like these, postseason time, where players emerge and step forward to help their team accomplish something great,” O’Connor said, revealing that he shared stories with the team about past Cavaliers squads that reached the super regional round.
“Part of the reason I shared those with the guys is because I wanted them to learn and understand the history of this program and what it has taken for teams to advance to a super regional, and the special moments where individual players rose up and teams rose up to accomplish what they have,” he said. “So this is incredibly special. … The way this group of guys has done it [will produce] memories of a lifetime, for sure.”
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