Neeck's big night keeps UVa's season alive in 8-3 win over ODU
Brandon Neeck had spent all weekend waiting for a chance to pitch in Columbia. He watched Virginia use 11 pitchers in three games in the NCAA Tournament, including a pair of fellow relievers twice.
He was ready to help when called upon.
That chance came in the fourth inning of Sunday’s elimination game against No. 11 national seed Old Dominion. An early five-run UVa lead was in jeopardy, as the Monarchs had already hit back-to-back home runs to lead off the inning, and then had the bases loaded with just one out.
Starter Griff McGarry had developed a cut on his right thumb through the course of that frame. The thumb was bleeding and forced him out of the game. Neeck had already been warming up but had to scramble to get ready to face an ODU lineup that led the country in home runs.
Once Neeck got the ball, he didn't give it up. Instead, he etched his name in the Virginia baseball record book.
The left-hander set a new school record in NCAA Tournament play with 16 strikeouts across the game's final 5.2 innings to help the Hoos stay alive with an 8-3 victory.
The first seven outs Neeck recorded were whiffs; so were the final eight. With those last three strikeouts in the ninth, he surpassed the 14-strikeout performance that Will Roberts posted in his complete game shutout of Navy to open the 2011 Charlottesville Regional.
"What an amazing performance," UVa head coach Brian O'Connor said after the win, which set up a rematch with the Monarchs at 7 p.m. tonight for a spot in next weekend's Super Regionals.
"I figured I was going in for a few innings just because of where we’re at with our pitchers," said Neeck who earned his first college win in the victory. "That was the fourth game in three days, so I knew it was gonna have to eat up some innings and then (pitching coach Drew Dickinson) between each inning kept telling me I was staying in."
The Cavaliers had used all three of their weekend starters in their first two games in the Columbia Regional. Andrew Abbott started Friday's 4-3 loss against South Carolina. Mike Vasil got the start against Jacksonville on Saturday, and Nate Savino pitched out of the bullpen against the Dolphins. UVa had also used Zach Messinger, another likely candidate to start in Columbia, out of the bullpen against the Gamecocks on Friday.
The expectation entering Sunday was that, like in Saturday's 13-8 win that eliminated Jacksonville, Virginia would need to lean on its offense to further extend its stay in the NCAA Tournament. UVa first took the field at noon for the first elimination game of the day against the host Gamecocks. Sophomore Matt Wyatt was the story of that 3-2 win with his own career day, striking out eight in five shutout innings in just his second start of the season.
"This game was won by him rising up and giving us five innings," O'Connor said after Sunday's matinee. "He was terrific. In complete command."
Armed with what O'Connor called "elite stuff," Wyatt looked unfazed by the stakes from the moment he took the mound. He ended both of his first-inning strikeouts with fastballs that hit 96 mph, then stared down Gamecocks catcher Colin Burgess after snagging his sharp line drive to end the second. Those five innings pitched and eight strikeouts were both new career benchmarks for the right-hander.
"I felt pretty good in warmups. So I'd say from pitch one," Wyatt said when asked how quickly he settled down in his first NCAA Tournament appearance. "Just kind of found the zone pretty quickly and trusted my guys behind me. I knew if I put it in the zone they'd make the plays."
Virginia used three pitchers out of the bullpen in relief of Wyatt against USC. Blake Bales, whose availability had been in question all weekend, only recorded one out on nine pitches before leaving with an undisclosed injury. Messinger came back to face the Gamecocks a second time, getting through the rest of the sixth and into the seventh. Closer Stephen Schoch finished the job, striking out five of the seven outs he recorded in his first appearance of the regional to record his eighth save of the season.
That win set up Sunday night's showdown with Old Dominion, whose regular-season visit to Disharoon Park back on April 14th had been rained out. McGarry had been scheduled to start that game for the Wahoos and got his shot at the Monarchs in Columbia instead.
Like Wyatt, McGarry came out shoving. He hit 99 mph a few times while striking out the side in order in each of the first two innings. He only faced one more than the minimum through three. Even after surrendering those back-to-back home runs to start the fourth, McGarry came back to record his eighth strikeout of the evening, matching Wyatt's total from earlier in the day.
It was McGarry's first start since failing to record an out at VCU on April 20th. A mainstay in the weekend rotation the past few seasons, he lost that role in early April and had spent much of the season's back half pitching in mop-up roles. He'd made some recent mechanical adjustments and, according to O'Connor, had had some encouraging performances in midweek scrimmages.
That's why UVa's head coach was so disappointed to see the cut on McGarry's thumb derail the senior's outing in the fourth. That eighth strikeout was the final out McGarry recorded. After three straight walks to load the bases, O'Connor made the move to Neeck.
Entering Sunday, Neeck's longest outing had been 2.1 innings. His career high in strikeouts was four. As Neeck cruised past those previous highs against the Monarchs, and with his pitching staff in need of anyone to get outs at this point in the weekend, O'Connor decided to keep riding Neeck's left arm for as long as possible.
"He was overmatching them, quite frankly," he said. "I just had a good feeling that he could keep this thing going."
It proved to be a career night amid what O'Connor called "one of the great days in our baseball program's history." McGarry and Neeck combined for 24 strikeouts, the most all-time in a UVa baseball game. The total line on the six pitchers the Hoos used on Sunday: five runs on 12 hits with 38 strikeouts in 18 innings pitched.
Now the Wahoos are a win away from something the program’s never been done before: No UVa team has ever lost a regional opener only to come back and win four straight games to advance in the NCAA Tournament. Sunday marked the first time the Cavaliers had ever forced a deciding Monday game at a regional by staving off elimination twice. Only once before, in O'Connor's first season at UVa in 2004, had the Hoos won an early Sunday elimination game.
"This team has been hardened the last two months. They have," O'Connor said. "And I think the strength that they have gained from what they went through the last two months has proven to be really important for them the past two days."
Old Dominion will bring back top starter Hunter Gregory (8-2, 3.16 ERA) to face the Wahoos on Monday. Gregory was forced to leave his start against Jacksonville on Friday after taking a comebacker to the knee in the second inning.
O'Connor wasn't prepared to say who will oppose the right-hander for Virginia. Of the pitchers on the 27-player active roster for the regional, only two have yet to appear in Columbia: freshmen left-handers Jake Berry and Luke Schauer. Abbott threw 88 pitches against USC on Friday, while Vasil threw 53 and Savino threw 61 against Jacksonville on Sunday.
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