8 months ago
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) -- It was only about 17 hours after the season ended with a difficult 12-inning loss to Arkansas in the College World Series, but the several hundred people gathered to welcome Virginia home already seemed to be helping to ease the pain.
"This is awesome," Cavaliers closer Kevin Arico said at a rally and autograph session at Davenport Field on Thursday night. Arico gave up the two-out, two-run home run to Brett Eibner in the ninth inning that allowed Arkansas to tie the game at 3.
Virginia had chances to win in each of the next four innings, getting a baserunner to third in each inning, but a rocket one-hopper hit by Danny Hultzen started an inning-ending double play in the ninth, and the Cavaliers stranded six runners in the extra innings.
They also made several baserunning blunders earlier in the game that were costly.
"As disappointing as last night's loss was, what's really important is that our team sits back and understands what they did accomplish as a total body of work throughout the entire season," coach Brian O'Connor said, including a school-record for victories with 49.
Earlier, he told the crowd: "This team will be remembered as the greatest team in Virginia baseball history," drawing a rousing cheer. He then added: "That's until next season."
The Cavaliers figure to lose only two players -- fourth-year pitcher Andrew Carraway, who took the loss in the finale after giving up a single and a run-scoring double in the top of the 12th, and fifth-year pitcher Robert Poutier. The two were also the team captains.
What returns, Hultzen said, is a team that will be hungrier than ever.
"I don't know if there's going to be a cloud over us, but there's definitely going to be a lot more motivation for next year because we got so close this year," the freshman lefthander, who started two of the Cavaliers three games at Rosenblatt Stadium, said.
He lasted only three innings against LSU, but worked 6 1-3 innings against the Razorbacks, allowing just five hits and one unearned run. He walked none, struck out seven and left with Virginia leading 2-0.
O'Connor, who said he told his team immediately after the loss that he couldn't make the pain go away but hoped they wouldn't let one game ruin a great season, said watching from the dugout as his team missed numerous opportunities to win the game was "gut-wrenching."
"The last four innings, they tear you up. That's what sports does when you put so much into something and you don't get out of it what you want out of it," he said. "It's tough."
Tough, but also valuable going forward.
"They got a very, very good taste of what Omaha is like and what the College World Series is like," he said. "I think that they will be very hungry to get back there again."
Valdes, the team's emotional leader, noted that Virginia has been in the NCAA tournament six years in a row, but had never gotten past the regional until this year. Winning a super regional at Ole Miss and then getting to Omaha only enhanced a season of firsts, he said.
"We got over a bunch of humps," Valdes said, "and hopefully next year we'll have the experience of being there once already and we'll see what we can do next year."
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