Savvy tag held by Griff O'Ferrall kept momentum with Virginia during regional final victory (2024)

From Griff O’Ferrall’s point of view, he was simply fulfilling his responsibility.

In doing so, though, the Virginia shortstop made a play most wouldn’t and ensured the Cavaliers would keep their one-run lead through eight innings on the way to ultimately beating Mississippi State, 9-2, in Sunday’s Charlottesville Regional final at Disharoon Park.

“The only opportunity to get that out was to hold on the tag,” O’Ferrall, the junior, said.

When Dakota Jordan of the Bulldogs appeared to have stolen second base with two outs and cleanup hitter Hunter Hines at the plate in that eighth inning, O’Ferrall never took his glove off Jordan after receiving the one-hop throw from Hoos catcher Jacob Ference.

O’Ferrall’s glove stuck on Jordan like a sticker and as Jordan’s fingers slipped off the backside of the wet base, O’Ferrall’s persistence paid off. Jordan was called out and the inning ended without Hines — who doubled earlier on Sunday against Cavaliers starter Jay Woolfolk and homered on Saturday against UVa — taking a swing with the chance to tie the score or put Mississippi State in front.

Instead, O’Ferrall pumped his fist once and Woolfolk, on a night in which he starred while throwing eight innings of two-run ball, jumped about three feet off the ground in elation.

“We were actually in a shift,” O’Ferrall said as he began to explain why he didn’t take the tag off of Jordan, “and there was no one [covering] third base, so I had to hold the tag regardless because there was no one at third. I didn’t want [Jordan] to run to third, and it just so happened that he slid off the bag.”

But O’Ferrall’s high-IQ and determined approach was present from start to finish during the regional.

To help secure Friday’s victory against Penn, O’Ferrall created an insurance run by singling in the seventh, stealing second and hustling to third on a passed ball to apply pressure on the Quakers before he scored on Ethan Anderson’s double.

On Sunday, O’Ferrall executed his part in a sixth-inning pick-off attempt by Woolfolk to eliminate a threat before O’Ferrall followed that up with the crucial tag out of Jordan. And then afterward as part of the six-run ninth inning that enabled UVa to separate from Mississippi State, O’Ferrall placed a bunt perfectly toward the left of left-handed reliever Tyler Davis, who scurried to field the ball before throwing past Hines at first base, which prompted two runs to score.

“The details, I believe, are what separates teams this time of the year,” 21st-year UVa coach Brian O’Connor said. “You gotta do what you have to do to get there, but when you get there, if you’ve prepared the right way all year long and you take care of the little details of the game, like, Griff O’Ferrall’s bunt there, the surprise bunt that created havoc, well we practice that every day.”

Said Mississippi State coach Chris Lemonis: “That game was tit for tat for eight and a half innings. It was as good of a ballgame as you could’ve been part of and those little moments kept momentum in their dugout.”

At the plate, O’Ferrall was 1-for-4 with three runs scored. His double off the wall in left-center field to lead off the game — UVa was road team on Sunday night — set the tone. O’Ferrall walked in the third and then reached on the bunt in the ninth.

He said he and his teammates were so concentrated on the meeting with the Bulldogs that they didn’t realize until after the game that they’ll host the Charlottesville Super Regional next week as the No. 12-overall seed.

Had chalk held in the Fayetteville Regional, UVa would’ve had to play its Super Regional there. But No. 5-overall seed Arkansas got beat on Sunday while the Cavaliers and Bulldogs were just getting underway. Kansas State won that regional, so the Hoos will welcome the Wildcats to town for the Supers.

“We were just focused,” O’Ferrall said. “We were trying to win this game [against Mississippi State] first and then we were going to look afterward [with what happened to Arkansas], but we were watching the game in the locker room before, like hours before we started warming up.”

About finding out afterward that UVa will get to play at least two more games at Disharoon Park, O’Ferrall said: “That was definitely good news.”