When Tom Hagan was 12, he and his Little League teammates were given a tour of Salem Memorial Baseball Stadium, and they got to hit against the pitching machines located beneath the stands.

As legend has it, then-Salem Avalanche manager Bill "Moose" McGuire got one look at Hagan's left-handed stroke and told him, "Son, whatever you do, don't let anybody touch that swing."

Hagan confesses to a few alterations over the years, but he has taken the same basic swing he had in the Cave Spring National Little League and used it to become a first-team All-ACC selection and a .326 hitter over the his four-year career at Virginia.

There was talk of Hagan having grounds for a hardship appeal that would have made him eligible for a fifth year, but he will conclude his career in the NCAA tournament, which begins today in Charlottesville, where Virginia (46-13) entertains Lehigh (28-26) at 3 p.m.

"Coach [Brian] O'Connor thought I had another year till about three weeks ago," Hagan said. "It made a difference, too, for the [June 5] draft, as to whether I was classified as a senior or a redshirt junior."

Hagan, who required surgery after a 2003 shoulder injury, played in 15 of 54 games that season. NCAA rules allow for a redshirt year if an applicant has participated in no more than 20 percent of a team's games; that figure for Hagan was 27.7 percent.

Had the Cavaliers played as many games as they have this year and reached the NCAA tournament, Hagan might have gotten the extra year "but, to tell you the truth," he said. "I wasn't extremely set on coming back."

Hagan, 22, recently earned a degree in systems engineering, posting a 3.5 grade-point average in his major and a 3.25 GPA overall.

"It would have been nice to have the option of coming back," Hagan said, "but, it looks like the draft is going to work out. I talked to a few scouts [Wednesday] and they said they wanted me as part of their organization.

"Maybe they were just making small talk. But, in the grand scheme of things, I think I'll get picked up."

Hagan came into this season with exactly a .300 batting average for his college career, but he had never played a whole year. He missed 16 games in 2004 because of a knee operation, and he played in only 37 of 61 games in 2005 because of a broken thumb.

For his first two years in college, Hagan also served as punter for the Cavaliers' football team, which meant he was unavailable for fall baseball, where skills are honed and positions won.

Although he originally came to UVa on a football scholarship, Hagan gave that up in the spring of 2004 and directed his full athletic attention to baseball.

"A lot of people have asked if I regret the decision and I haven't," he said. "Not one time. I think I made the right decision at the right time. The baseball program here has taken off.

"Not a lot of people are fortunate enough to play two sports in college, and I was appreciative of that. But, I was recruited earlier for baseball than football and that was what I wanted to do."

Hagan has taken the time originally devoted to football and used it to get better in baseball. He worked on his sprints last summer and this year has stolen 19 bases in 21 attempts.

"I'm not near the fastest guy on the team," said Hagan, who was named Timesland athlete of the year in 2002, when he used the break between football and baseball to start at forward on Cave Spring's Group AAA championship basketball team.

Hagan has 14 extra-base hits, but he is still looking for his first home run of the season after hitting one in each of his first three seasons, including an opposite-field poke in the 2004 ACC Tournament in Salem.

Hagan has never homered at UVa's spacious Davenport Field, and that's been the topic of ribbing from teammates who are accustomed to seeing him homer with some regularity in batting practice.

Hagan thinks that scouts realize how difficult it is to homer at Virginia, where the Cavaliers have nine in 34 games, "but it hasn't really come up in draft talk," he said. "Look at Ryan Zimmerman. Power comes with time."

Zimmerman, the fourth overall selection in last year's draft, had seven home runs in 174 career games at Virginia. He has nine already this season for the Washington Nationals.

Zimmerman and pitcher Matt Avery both forfeited their final seasons of college eligibility, but the Cavaliers improved on last year's 41-20 record and broke the school record for victories.

UVa was eliminated from the ACC tournament when Florida State defeated the Cavaliers 11-0 in a game that was limited to seven innings by the "slaughter rule" -- hardly the way a team would want to go into the ACC Tournament.

"You could say that," Hagan said, "but last year, we got to the [ACC] championship game and two days later we had to fly to Oregon. We were worn out, we played two games and we were on our way back home.

"Looking at where we are right now, yes, we went 1-2 [in the ACC Tournament], but we're home, we're rested, we're going to be ready to play. If we could get past the regional, we'd be the first UVa team to do so."

Chances are, Hagan would be in the middle of it.