Top-seed Virginia beats No. 2-seed Mississippi State in walk-off style to take Charlottesville Regional winner's bracket game (2024)

For a club with 20 come-from-behind wins under its belt already this season, Virginia didn’t worry or panic while trailing by two runs into the seventh inning on Saturday night.

Not even up against a postseason nemesis of the past.

And in that seventh, the contest flipped.

“Everyone in the lineup, everyone in the clubhouse, we hold ourselves to a certain standard,” freshman third baseman Eric Becker said, “and tonight, we didn’t waver from it.”

Hoos freshman reliever Matt Augustin escaped trouble, striking out Mississippi State’s Dakota Jordan with two on and two out to ignite an emotional roar from the sell-out Disharoon Park faithful of 5,919 before Becker’s two-run single up the middle knotted the score.

UVa, the host and top seed in the Charlottesville Regional, eventually won it 5-4 in walk-off style in the ninth over the second-seeded Bulldogs on Bobby Whalen’s hard-hit grounder booted by Mississippi State second baseman Amani Larry which allowed Harrison Didawick to score the game-winning run.

“Great crowd, everything at stake,” Cavaliers coach Brian O’Connor said, “and I’m just really proud of the grit and the fight our team showed. Either team could’ve won that ballgame, but it came down to that we just did a little bit more.”

Saturday’s victory for the Hoos (43-15) over the Bulldogs (39-22) sends UVa to Sunday's regional final at 6 p.m. The win was also the first in the history of the series between the two sides. In the only three previous other encounters, Mississippi State beat UVa, 6-5, in the 2021 College World Series. In 2013, the Bulldogs swept the Charlottesville Super Regional on their way to the Omaha.

And through the middle innings, it appeared like Mississippi State would take another contest from the Cavaliers.

Bulldogs cleanup hitter Hunter Hines’ third-inning three-run homer along with a fourth-inning add-on run scored when UVa starter Evan Blanco threw into center field on a pick-off attempt that enabled Bryce Chace to cross the plate provided Mississippi State a 4-2 edge.

Starting pitcher Jurrangelo Cijntje, a hard-throwing right-hander with a fastball touching 97 mph, was rolling, too.

He hadn’t allowed a hit since Becker’s two-run triple started the evening’s scoring in the second inning until Ethan Anderson singled up the middle to start the sixth inning. But that was erased in the next at-bat when Casey Saucke grounded into a double play.

Cijntje struck out five Hoos in total, and they didn’t threaten until the seventh when Jacob Ference and Didawick tallied consecutive singles before Henry Godbout’s sacrifice bunt moved them over to second and third ahead of Becker’s game-tying single.

“Becker, that guy killed us tonight,” Mississippi State coach Chris Lemonis said. “He drove in everything.”

From there, the squad with a knack for rallying from behind — like they did from six down against Iowa in February, five down against Wake Forest in March, five down from North Carolina in April and seven down against rival Virginia Tech on the final night of the regular season last month — knew how to finish.

Augustin fired 2.2 scoreless innings with four strikeouts and after he surrendered a walk and a single with two outs in the ninth, veteran left-hander Angelo Tonas took one pitch to escape the jam by getting Hines to ground out to second base.

“The crowd was absolutely electric,” Augustin said with a smile after his first-ever appearance in an NCAA tournament game, “and coming into it, seeing everybody, it made my heart rate rise, but after the first couple of batters, my heart rate slowed down and I was able to lock in.”

In the home ninth, Didawick fell behind in the count 1-2, but adjusted and drove fastball up and away into the left-center gap for a leadoff ground-rule double. Godbout walked and Becker grounded into a fielder’s choice ahead of Whalen’s hard-hit grounder that won it.