Virginia Baseball: ACC Baseball Championship Preview

Previewing UVA's pool play matchups against Florida State and Notre Dame at the 2022 ACC Baseball Championship in Charlotte

Author:
Matt Newton
Updated:
May 24, 2022 6:05 PM EDT
Original:
May 24, 2022

Virginia (38-15, 17-13 ACC) is set to begin play in the 2022 ACC Baseball Championship this week at Truist Field in Charlotte. The Cavaliers are seeking their fifth ACC title in program history and first since the 2011 season. Last year, Virginia went 2-0 in pool play to advance to the semifinals before losing to Duke. UVA then went on to make an improbable run to the College World Series despite being a No. 3 seed in the Columbia Regional.

UVA is the No. 5 seed in Pool D in the 2022 ACC Baseball Championship and will face No. 9 seed Florida State on Wednesday at 3pm and No. 4 seed Notre Dame on Friday at 11am. The team with the best record in the pool will advance to the semifinals. If teams are tied at the end of pool play, the higher seed will advance. In Pool D, Notre Dame holds the tiebreaker as the highest seed.

The winner of Pool D will face the winner of Pool A (No. 1 Virginia Tech, No. 8 North Carolina, or No. 12 Clemson) in the single-elimination semifinals on Saturday at 1pm. The winner of that game will move on to the ACC Championship Game on Sunday at noon.

See the full bracket and schedule for the 2022 ACC Baseball Championship here:

This will be the first time UVA has played either of these teams in the 2022 season. In 2021, Virginia lost two out of three games against Florida State in Tallahassee and was swept by Notre Dame in Charlottesville. The Cavaliers avenged the latter loss in the 2021 ACC Baseball Championship, beating Notre Dame 14-1 in pool play.

Notre Dame went 33-13 overall in the regular season, including a 16-11 mark in ACC play, good for a second-place finish in the ACC Atlantic standings. The Fighting Irish swept Florida State, Clemson, and Wake Forest, but were swept by Louisville and Duke. Notre Dame lost two out of three against Miami and one game against Virginia Tech (the other two games in that series were canceled), but won two out of three games in series against Boston College and Pittsburgh.

Notre Dame is the best fielding team in the ACC with a fielding percentage of .981. The Fighting Irish have committed only 32 errors all year. Notre Dame is also second in the ACC in team ERA (4.03), only trailing Virginia, and sixth in the conference in team batting average (.300).

Florida State finished the regular season 32-22 overall and 15-15 in the ACC, notching a fourth-place finish in the Atlantic. The Seminoles won two out of three games in series against Wake Forest, NC State, Duke, Boston College, and Miami, got swept by Notre Dame, Louisville, and North Carolina, and lost two out of three in series versus Georgia Tech and Clemson.

The Seminoles picked up a major series victory two weekends ago, taking two out of three against Miami. However, FSU enters the ACC Tournament on a four-game losing streak as the Seminoles followed up that series win against the Hurricanes with a loss to Florida and then got swept by North Carolina in the final weekend of the regular season.

The Cavaliers are on a mission to raise the ACC trophy at the end of the week, but the stakes of this tournament go beyond winning the ACC Championship. Virginia has experienced vastly different results based on where its games have taken place this season. UVA is 29-5 in the friendly confines of Disharoon Park, but 7-10 in road games. Virginia is right on the bubble of being one of the top 16 seeds in the NCAA Tournament and getting the right to host an NCAA regional in Charlottesville. The Cavaliers must deliver a strong performance in Charlotte to be able to have home field advantage to begin their quest to return to the College World Series.

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