CHARLOTTESVILLE — With Coastal Carolina staring at postseason elimination last June, Nick Parker pitched the game of his life against East Carolina. Wearing a Virginia uniform Saturday, the graduate transfer again ascended the NCAA tournament regional stage and again baffled the Pirates.
Winning for the eighth time in as many decisions this season, Parker allowed five hits, all singles, and one run in seven innings in the Cavaliers’ 2-1 winners’ bracket victory at Disharoon Park. Run-scoring singles by Kyle Teel in the third and Ethan Anderson in the seventh provided all the offense Virginia needed, and 6-foot-10 lefty Jake Berry retired six consecutive hitters for his second save.
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“Nick Parker went out and was in complete command of the game with all of his pitches,” Cavaliers coach Brian O’Connor said. “… The mix and match, and (ability) to use all four pitches, that’s as great as you’ll see in college baseball. … Nick Parker is a great college pitcher.”
The Cavaliers (47-12 and 27-0 against non-conference opponents) are a win away from advancing to their eighth super regional, which they also would host. Don’t bet against them.
This marks the eighth time in O’Connor’s tenure that the Cavaliers have opened 2-0 in a regional. On six of the previous seven occasions, they advanced to a super regional.
Conversely, and affirming the importance of Saturday’s game, only once has Virginia reached a super regional after an early regional setback. That was in 2021, when the Cavaliers rallied to win four straight after dropping their opener to South Carolina.
UVa next plays Sunday at 6 p.m., against the winner of Sunday’s noon game between ECU and Oklahoma. If the Cavaliers stumble, they’ll play a winner-take-all contest Monday.
Charlottesville Regional primer: Things to know heading into this weekend’s games
In a regional hosted by ECU last season, Parker almost single-handedly ended the Pirates’ 20-game winning streak. His threw eight shutout innings, striking out 10 and yielding just three hits in a 9-1 victory that forced a winner-take-all game between Coastal and ECU, which the home side won.
Virginia pitching coach Drew Dickinson and O’Connor witnessed Parker’s outing at ECU last season, and when he hit the transfer portal, they pounced.
“That is what 100% sold us on saying we need to try and get this guy to Virginia,” O’Connor said.
The Pirates (46-18) started six of the same hitters against Parker on Saturday as they did last season. But familiarity did not translate to success.
“He just never throws that pitch you think you’re going to get,” ECU coach Cliff Godwin said.
Parker’s remarkable two-year postseason aggregates against the Pirates: 15 innings, eight hits, one run.
“We watched the outing from last year,” Parker said. “We saw what we did well.”
Virginia starter Nick Parker in Saturday’s NCAA tournament game against East Carolina.
In between 2-out singles by Josh Moylan in the first inning and Joey Berini in the fifth, Parker retired 12 straight batters. Berini advanced to second base on a balk and to third on Alec Makarewicz’s infield single off Parker’s glove, but Parker froze Lane Hoover with a curveball for an inning-ending strikeout.
Both among the five teams that entered the tournament with at least 45 victories, Virginia and ECU combined for 29 runs and 33 hits in their respective Friday routs. Saturday figured to be far more tense, much like the Pirates’ 4-2 win over the Cavaliers at this very stage last season: the winners’ bracket regional clash.
“They pitched great, we pitched great,” Godwin said.
Virginia moved runners into scoring position in each of the first three innings and broke through in the third as Teel followed Jake Gelof’s double to left with an RBI rope single to right.
ECU plated the tying run on a peculiar sixth-inning sequence.
With Carter Cunningham (single) on second and Cam Clonch (hit by pitch) on first, defensive replacement Ryley Johnson lined a 2-out single to right. When first baseman Anderson cut off Casey Saucke’s throw to the plate and glanced toward second, Cunningham broke for home and scored easily when Anderson threw to second.
Anderson atoned with the game-winning hit, a two-out looper to right that scored Ethan O’Donnell, who had walked, stolen second and advanced to third on a ground out.
Small ball isn’t the way the Cavaliers, the national leaders in batting average, usually operate, but in postseason, versatility is essential.
This is Virginia’s 17th NCAA tournament in O’Connor’s 20 years as coach, and his approach to postseason has evolved along with the program. As O’Connor explained after Friday’s victory over Army, most every strategic tournament decision is made with an eye toward “winning the whole thing.”
That’s not arrogance. That’s the confidence of a coach who’s steered his program to five College World Series and the 2015 national championship.
“If you want to have success this time of year,” O’Connor said, “not only do you have to be talented and execute, you’ve got to show great poise.”
Those assets were on full display Saturday.
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