Virginia wins controversial challenge to overturn potential final out of bottom 5th vs. Duke

Virginia and Duke found themselves in the middle of a huge review at third base midway through their first game of the Super Regional. In the bottom of the fifth, Duke led 3-1 and Virginia was batting to try and tie or take the lead and had runners on first and second with one out.

A promising start to the inning took a tough turn when Virginia’s next batter struck out, immediately followed by a failed steal attempt from the runner on second to get to third. Two outs, bang bang, and the inning is over just like that. Except UVA head coach Brian O’Connor wasn’t ready to submit. After a close call on the tag from the Duke third baseman, he wanted another look the play and challenged.

Following a brief review, the umpires came back and reversed the call after replay showed that the Cavalier runner did slid his hand underneath the tag to hit the bag just before Duke got a glove on him. So the Cavs got the out back to have two outs with guys on second and third.

Unfortunately, UVA flew out to centerfield the very next at bat to end the inning and render the challenge ultimately useless. After all that, the score remained at 3-1 Duke.

O’Connor’s mid-game comments

In the first four innings of the game, Virginia’s leadoff hitter for the inning swung and put the first pitch in play, all resulting in outs. O’Connor doesn’t want the aggressive approach to slow down, despite the paltry results.

“We’ve tried to take the fight to them and gotten below some balls. We just need to get in the middle of the baseball and get more line drives,” O’Connor said.

Virginia did manage to push a run across in the bottom of the third inning in response to Duke plating a pair. The Blue Devils would plate another run and by the time O’Connor spoke to the ESPN2 broadcast, the Cavaliers still trailed, 3-1.

O’Connor gave some credit to Duke starter Andrew Healy, who pitched three innings and kept Virginia mostly quiet offensively.

“Well, certainly Healy did a nice job at the start of the game,” O’Connor said.

He also lauded his own starting pitcher, Nick Parker. Despite allowing the three runs, Parker had managed traffic on the base paths well and for whatever struggles he had, he could also follow it up with quick work.

After hyping up his pitcher on the broadcast during the bottom of the fifth inning, Parker went out and pitched a six-pitch top of the sixth inning to get Virginia back in the dugout.

“Well, he’s tough. He’s a guy that manages innings and that’s what he’s done. He doesn’t let innings get out of hand and we need him to continue to go out there and pound the strike zone, mix his pitches and keep us right in this ball game,” O’Connor said.