Virginia falls in walk-off fashion against North Carolina in College World Series opener: ‘We’re frustrated’

North Carolina’s Vance Honeycutt’s single in the bottom of the ninth sent in Jackson Van De Brake to secure the win over No. 12-seed Virginia in a 3-2 walk-off loss in the College World Series opener on Friday afternoon. 

“They just did a little bit more of the little things than we did,” said Virginia coach Brian O’Connor after the loss. “We’re disappointed, we’re frustrated, we just don’t  believe we played a very good baseball game today…that’s on me as the leader, that’s my responsibility to be prepared with the fine details.” 

O’Connor elected to have Chase Hungate pitch to Honeycutt rather than walk him. Honeycutt drove the ball over shortstop Griff O’Ferrall’s glove,  bringing in the winning run.

“It was the right matchup,” said O’Connor. “[Casey] Cook is their best hitter in the lineup and that wasn’t an option to walk Honeycutt. Honeycutt is a great player and has scored a lot of homeruns, but I felt like we had handled it really good all day and the guy on deck has a terrific day.. Actually when they played in Charlottesville, I intentionally walked Cook because I have so much respect for him as a hitter. I think he has a really good balanced approach and hits the ball to all fields.

“Unfortunately Hungate fell behind on the count and hung a slider a little bit too much and Honeycutt did a very nice job with it.” 

UNC was on the board first but Virginia starter Evan Blanco pitched five scoreless innings – evening recording a 1-2-3- frame in the sixth inning.

“I thought he pitched a great ball game,” said O’Connor. “Really proud of Evan, you can see why we started him in the opener. He had a fantastic day and managed some situations and gave us an opportunity to win.” 

This helped the Cavaliers go up 2-1 after Griff O’Ferrall’s sacrifice fly scored Henry Godbout to put the Cavaliers ahead in the sixth inning. 

But the ‘Hoos couldn’t hold on and UNC reliever Dalton Pence, who earned the win with 3.1 scoreless innings. 

The Cavaliers matched their season low with five hits,  left 10 runners on base and were 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position. Twelve of the Cavaliers last 13 batters failed to reach base.

Virginia came to Omaha batting .336, which is good for second nationally – averaging 9.4 runs per game. 

“They went to two of their best relievers for sure but we didn’t make enough of an adjustment,” said O’Connor. “Just couldn’t capitalize…Runners on second or third and no outs and only got one run to show for it… We couldn’t get anything going to have a multiple run inning.” 

UNC’s now advances to the winner’s bracket, while UVA’s start to the CWS mirrors last year’s and will play in an elimination game on Sunday against either No. 1 Tennessee or No. 8 Florida State. 

“The only thing we can control is winning the next game. So just taking it one at a time,” said O’Ferrall. “Like Coach said, we need to do the small details that got us here in the first place. If we can control what we can control, take it one game at a time, then we’ll have a shot to get back into it.” 

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