VT and UVA will face off in a pivotal series that will provide both teams the opportunities to stake their final regular season claims to an NCAAT bid. Heading into the series, below is an overview of UVA’s players to give an idea of what to expect with their lineup. We’ll definitely have our hands full as UVA has been playing good baseball as of late while we have trended in the opposite direction but hopefully our team can find a way to re-group and finish the regular season on a high note. • Hitting: At the top of Virginia’s order is CF Aidan Teel who was inserted into the leadoff spot about halfway through the year and the move has paid off as UVA was 12-11 before the move and has been 18-5 since he took over at the top of the order. In conference play, he has hit for a good average (.333) and leads the league in doubles with 13 which has contributed to a really strong ops (1.047). Rounding out the top 3 of their order are SS Eric Becker and RF Henry Ford who are top 10 in conference play in multiple metrics. Becker is 7th in avg (.375), 7th in obp (.465), 6th in slg (.667), 6th in ops (1.132) and 3rd in runs scored (32) while Ford is 10th in avg (.363), 8th in slg (.647), 8th in ops (1.063), 12th in runs scored and t-8th in hr (8). In the middle of their order, JUCO transfer 1B Chris Arroyo bats cleanup and has been solid this year in conference play (.292 avg, .866 ops, 5 hr, 20 rbi). Behind him in the #5 spot is 2B Henry Godbout who has been a standout in conference play. The #67 2025 draft prospect per MLB Pipeline has hit for a .344 avg (16th in the ACC) and sports a .969 ops while contributing 4 hr and 22 rbi in conference play. Rounding out the middle of their lineup and the lower part of their order are two players in C Jacob Ference and DH/LF Harrison Didawick that had tremendous years last year but have had some struggles this year. Ference is batting .275 with a .750 ops in conference games but has just 2 home runs which is way below the 13 home runs he hit in conference play last year. Similarly, Didawick hasn’t performed at the level he did last year when he hit a UVA program record-tying 23 home runs. He has started to hit better as of late and has a respectable .879 ops and 5 hr in conference play but is certainly not what they were expecting heading into the year. In any case, he is still a threat in the lower part of the order to watch out for. Completing their lineup will likely be LF James Nunnallee who hits 8th and 3B Luke Hanson who hits 9th. Nunnallee has had a solid true freshman season with a .267 avg and .750 ops in conference games while Hanson provides a solid bat at the end of the order with a .304 avg and .833 ops in conference play. Off the bench, we could see freshman Chone James as a right-handed DH option in place of Didawick. James has hit well in ACC play (.390 avg, .463 slg) in 43 plate appearances but is someone that doesn’t walk much (just 2 bb in 43 pa). • Starting Pitching: UVA will likely go with senior RHP Jay Woolfolk (5.18 era, 1.39 whip across 41.2 innings in conference play) as their Friday starter, junior LHP Bradley Hodges (8.10 era, 1.30 whip across 10.0 innings in conference play) as their Saturday starter and freshman LHP Tomas Valincius (6.30 era, 1.45 whip across 40.0 innings in conference play) as their Sunday starter. Woolfolk has been a bit inconsistent in ACC play but has pitched better of late and is coming off arguably his best start of the season against Miami this past weekend (6.0 ip, 3 h, 0 er, 3 bb, 7 so). Hodges is a quality pitcher that missed essentially all of 2024 due to an arm injury and has been utilized primarily as a weekday starter throughout this season while they ramped him up coming back from injury and was recently inserted as their Saturday starter two weekends ago. He had a masterful outing against Georgia Tech in his first weekend start going 7.0 innings while giving up just 2 hits and 1 earned run but struggled against Miami this past weekend giving up 8 earned runs, 2 home runs and walking 4 in just 3.0 innings. Valincius has been a solid Sunday starter for UVA and has given them at least 5.2 innings in his last 4 starts while not giving up more than 4 runs in any of those outings. He struggled with giving up a lot of hits earlier in ACC play but in his last 4 outings he has managed to improve in that area, giving up just 14 hits in 24.1 innings pitched. • Relief Pitching: With Hodges moving into the Saturday starter role, LHP Evan Blanco (7.88 era, 2.00 whip across 24.0 innings in conference play) has assumed a long relief role where we’ll likely see him once in the series for 2 to 4 innings depending on the situation. Among their regular relievers, UVA has relied most heavily on LHP Matt Lanzendorfer (4.34 era, 1.50 whip across 18.2 innings in conference play), RHP Wes Arrington (6.17 era, 1.37 whip across 11.2 innings in conference play) and RHP Alex Markus (3.38 era, 1.78 whip across 10.2 innings in conference play). All three are graduate transfers this year that have appeared in at least 10 ACC games and have provided quality performance. Beyond them, UVA has six other relievers that have logged between 5 and 10 innings in ACC play that we will likely see. Among them, LHP Matthew Buchanan has had the most success with a 0.00 era and 1.04 whip across 8.2 innings innings. The rest of their core bullpen are right-handers including Jack O’Connor (8.68 era, 2.04 whip in conference play), Kevin Jaxel (3.12 era, 1.50 whip in conference play), Joe Colucci (7.04 era, 1.57 whip in conference play), Ryan Osinski (12.79 era, 3.32 whip in conference play) and Drew Koenen (7.94 era, 2.65 whip in conference play). • Fielding: UVA is one of the poorer fielding teams in the league and the left side of their infield has been the primary sore spot as SS Eric Becker has accounted for 14 errors on the season (.920 fielding %) and 3B Luke Hanson isn’t far behind with 9 errors on the season (.893 fielding %). On the plus side, UVA’s combination of catchers (Jacob Ference and Trey Wells) have thrown out runners at a high rate and have contributed to UVA being one of the hardest teams in the ACC to run against.