Virginia Baseball Set for Rematch With Mississippi State in Regional Final

The Cavaliers and Bulldogs are set to run it back in the regional final. Mississippi State (40-22) defeated St. John's 13-5 in an elimination game on Sunday afternoon, setting up a rematch with No. 12 Virginia (43-15) on Sunday at 6pm at Disharoon Park in the Charlottesville Regional final at the 2024 NCAA Baseball Tournament.

Virginia and Mississippi State will meet 24 hours after playing a thrilling winner's bracket game on Saturday night, a game that ended with the Cavaliers walking off the Bulldogs in the bottom of the ninth.

UVA's pitching staff led the way, with Evan Blanco giving the Cavaliers a solid start, surrendering three earned runs on eight hits and striking out seven batters in six innings. He then turned the ball over to freshman Matt Augustin, who pitched 2.2 scoreless innings and posted four strikeouts before Angelo Tonas came in and needed just one pitch to strand runners on the corners, keeping it a tie game in the ninth inning.

The other reason it was a tie game at that point was because of another freshman, Eric Becker, who delivered a two-run triple off the wall in the bottom of the second and a clutch two-run single in the bottom of the seventh to make it 4-4. Becker went 2 for 4 with four RBI in his second-ever NCAA Tournament game.

Harrison Didawick opened the bottom of the ninth with a ground-rule double and eventually came around to score the game-winning run on a Bobby Whalen grounder up the middle that was mishandled by Mississippi State second baseman Amani Larry before he could attempt to turn a game-saving double-play.

The 5-4 walk-off win put the Cavaliers in the regional final in advantageous position, now needing only one win in their next two games to advance to the Super Regional. Of course, Virginia would prefer to not see the Charlottesville Regional go to that "if necessary" game 7 on Monday and will look to wrap things up on Sunday night.

Round 2 between Virginia and Mississippi State is set for Sunday at 6pm on Disharoon Park and will be streamed on ESPN+. Neither team has named a starting pitcher for the game at this point.