Virginia goes down swinging in NCAA baseball super regional
After an overnight rain delay, Virginia pulls within a run of Mississippi State but can do no more.
Monday, June 10, 2013
CHARLOTTESVILLE -- All Virginia wanted when it took the field Sunday was to be around for a possible 4 p.m. game Monday.
The Cavaliers had that opportunity but not in the manner they would have preferred.
Monday's outing was short-lived as Mississippi State took up where it left off Sunday night and dispatched the Cavaliers 6-5.
Play had been suspended at the end of a one-hour, nine-minute delay Sunday night, at which point the Bulldogs were leading 5-3 with their leadoff hitter at the plate in the bottom of the seventh.
A resumption was scheduled for 4 p.m., the original time for a prospective Game 3 in a best-of-three series.
It was over after 55 minutes.
Mississippi State (49-18) had beaten Virginia 11-6 in Saturday's Charlottesville super regional opener.
UVa did not go down without a fight Monday, scoring two runs in the top of the ninth. The Cavaliers had runners on second and third when Derek Fisher grounded out to end the threat.
It ended an 0-for-7 weekend for Fisher, who is 2 of 36 in NCAA play over the past two seasons.
"The ninth-inning rally didn't surprise me at all," UVa coach Brian O'Connor said. "We've had a lot of come-from-behind victories and I'm just disappointed we didn't have a chance to play one more ballgame."
When they survived Virginia's final two at-bats, the Bulldogs moved on to the College World Series for the ninth time in their history and first since 2007.
"This morning, for some crazy reason, I was searching the Internet and saw where Virginia's RPI is [No.] 2 in the country," Mississippi State coach John Cohen said. "Almost everything we expected from their club came to fruition, even to the last at-bat of the game.
"We knew they were going to make a run."
Virginia, bidding for its third trip to the College World Series in five years, went 0-2 in a super regional for the first time in three appearances as a host.
"It's real difficult," O'Connor. "I don't ever want to say I'm disappointed in the team. It's just frustrating. This can happen. We've been in this scenario before, where we haven't played our best baseball.
"That's typically what happens with a team that doesn't advance on. That is with no disrespect to Mississippi State. Part of the reason we didn't play well was because of Mississippi State. They caused us some fits."
The Cavaliers (50-12) came out Monday with All-ACC reliever Kyle Crockett, who had thrown 44 pitches during 2 2/3 innings of shutout relief Sunday night.
"It was automatic for me," O'Connor said. "To me, it was no different than the scenario last weekend. He threw a little over 30 pitches last weekend [against Army]; then he came back the next night. His stuff looked the same."
Crockett immediately landed in trouble when Renfroe sliced a ball to the opposite inside the foul line that was bobbled by UVa right-fielder Joe McCarthy. Renfroe came in to score on a liner to right by C.T. Bradford that McCarthy had in his glove but could not control.
McCarthy's error, his first of the season, was the seventh committed by the Cavaliers in two games. Virginia had not committed more than three errors in a game all season before it had four Saturday.
"You cannot win time of year unless you pitch and play good defense and we didn't do that," O'Connor said.
Crockett, a fourth-round Cleveland Indians draft pick, was able to avoid the assault that Mississippi State had launched on six other UVa pitchers over two nights but the Cavalier hitters were unable to overcome Bulldogs' closer Jonathan Holder.
Holder, a sophomore right-hander, who has given up seven earned runs in 74 1/3 innings and 53 appearances, gave up two hits and two runs (one earned) in two innings.
The pitching story was Chad Girodo, the lefty middle reliever who struck out 10 batters in a 4 2/3-inning stint Sunday night. The Bulldogs had taken a 5-1 lead off of UVa starter Scott Silverstein.
Silverstein, a fifth-year senior who has overcome two labrum operations, was obviously overcome with emotion in the interview room after the game. He was later seen walking out to the mound, holding a bat and probably reminiscing on the end of his college career.
Silverstein never seemed comfortable after a rainstorm that led to a 22-minute delay Sunday.
"No way I'm making excuses and he wouldn't want me to," O'Connor said, "but it's unlike him to walk three batters in nine innings. It breaks my heart to see him go out that way."
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THE ROANOKE TIMES
