Charlottesville, VA (cvillerightnow.com): This is it, the home stretch of the 2025 regular season.  Virginia has work to do going into this weekend, still on the outside looking in of NCAA Tournament Selection with seven games to play.  The energy during practice is strong, the players and coaches are confident, they have everything they need to ride out of the regular season looking strong to begin the ACC tournament.  We will find out, as the Hoos play against the Miami Hurricanes this weekend for the final home series of conference play this year. 

The Canes are playing their best Baseball of the year going into this series with Virginia.  Miami enters play on a six-game winning streak after two series sweeps.  Their record gets more impressive going all the way back to mid-April.  They dropped Game One to Duke on April 11th but came back to win the series.  Aside from a 5-4 defeat to FIU on April 23rd, the Canes have swept Georgia Tech, Boston College, and NC State.  Miami has lost only four games since the beginning of April, two of which came against FIU.  They have stormed into fourth place in the conference with a 14-9 record, 30-18 overall.   

This Miami team is a balanced one, they can lean on both good hitting and good pitching to win in nearly any type of ballgame.   

The hitting core has a solid cumulative average of .277, with a .370 on-base percentage as a team, alongside an excellent run total of 324, and have hit 60 homeruns as a team.  In the middle of the lineup lies a nasty one two-punch.  Junior infielder Jake Ogden, a transfer from the SOCON and UNC Greensboro, is slashing .351, leading the team in hits with 67 and stolen bases with 11.  Alongside Ogden is the Florida native, sophomore infielder Daniel Cuvet, lighting the ACC on fire in his second season for Miami with a starting-lineup best .354 average, leading the team in extra base-hits (13 doubles and 13 homeruns) along with a team-best 69 RBIs and 117 total bases.  He has also contributed his fair share of steals with 6. 

Miami’s pitching rotation though, is one of the best in the nation.  It is a deep stable of starters that the Hurricanes can draw from, with several different pitchers seeing time in and out of the starting rotation.  All three starters have been named for Miami going into these three games, and all three have ERAs under 4, which for the college game, is an excellent mark.  Griffin Hugus is the ace, he starts this evening against Jay Woolfolk in game one.  The righty is 5-4 with a 3.68 ERA over 66 innings, walking 25 and striking out 72.  Righthanded swing-man AJ Cisar is 4-1 with a 3.42 ERA in 47.1 innings pitched.  Cisar will start Saturday against Virginia lefthander Bradley Hodges.  Finally, righty Tate DeRias is pitching to a 2.60 ERA in 34.2 innings pitched, currently boasting a record of 2-0.  The freshman will battle another first year ACC star in Wahoo lefty Tomas Valincius in game three on Sunday.   

Miami will aim for the highest possible seed in the ACC tournament with an NCAA tournament bid already looking likely and will have the momentum advantage going into this series.   However, the Hoos are fresh, rested, and sharp, playing three excellent midweek games both before and after the final exam break.  It will be a thriller at Disharoon Park this weekend.  Ryan Chambers will have the call on Newsradio WINA and Cvillerightnow.com, and pregame coverage will begin 15 minutes before each game.  Tonight, UVA First Pitch, our pregame show, will begin at 5:45pm in advance of a 6:00pm first pitch.  Game two starts at 4:00pm tomorrow, and game three at 1:00pm on Sunday.