UVA Baseball sweeps Georgia Tech, wins ACC’s Coastal Division
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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - The UVA Baseball team rallied to beat Georgia Tech Saturday in Atlanta, sweeping the series and winning the ACC’s Coastal Division for the first time since 2011.
Jake Gelof hit two home runs. His second one in the seventh inning gave Virginia the lead for good. It was his 22nd home run of the season, which tied Virginia’s single-season home run record.
Virginia ends the regular season winning nine-straight games and clinches the 2-seed for the upcoming ACC tournament.
UVA will be in a pool with 7-seed North Carolina and 11-seed Georgia Tech in the ACC tournament. Game times TBD.
HOW IT HAPPENED
• Gelof got the UVA offense started three batters into the game. He launched a two-run homer over the left field wall to give the Cavaliers an early advantage.
• Colin Tuft plated the third UVA run in the second inning with an RBI ground out the scored Anthony Stephan.
• The Yellow Jackets swarmed back by scoring the next five runs between the second and fifth innings. A total of 11 of Georgia Tech’s 17 hits came between the second and fifth innings. Only three of the 17 on the day went for extra bases.
• The Cavaliers erased Georgia Tech’s 5-3 lead with a three-run rally in the sixth inning. Tuft delivered the go-ahead single in the frame, scoring both Henry Godbout and Casey Saucke.
• The one-run advantage did not hold as Tech’s Kristian Campbell came around to score on a sac fly by Stephen Reid in the bottom half of the sixth. The Cavaliers escaped further damage with no outs and the bases loaded thanks to reliever Bradley Hodges who fanned two batters and induced an inning ending groundout.
• The momentum of Hodges’ effort carried over into the seventh as Gelof left the yard for the second time to break a 6-6 stalemate.
• The Cavaliers scored what proved to the winning run in the eighth inning when Griff O’Ferrall worked a 3-2 count before depositing a single to left that allowed Godbout to score the eighth run of the day.
• Georgia Tech scored run on three hits in the ninth and had the winning run on second base but Woolfolk struck out the final two batters to complete the save.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
• Virginia’s 44 regular season wins are the second-most in UVA history. The program record of 45, has been achieved four times (2006, 2010, 2011, & 2013).
• UVA’s 19 ACC wins are the most since 2016.
• The Cavaliers win their first Coastal Division Championship since 2011. The Cavaliers have either been first or second in the Coastal Division 10 of the last 14 years.
• Virginia is 5-2 in one-run games this year. Saturday was UVA’s first one-run affair since April 23 at Notre Dame.
• This weekend marked the fourth ACC series sweep of the season for the Cavaliers.
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