Six pitchers share 11-inning no-hitter
Former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis might have thought he was tripping on acid if he read the recap from Virginia’s 4-3, 11-inning win over William & Mary on Wednesday in U.S. college baseball.
Ellis claimed he was under the influence of LSD when he walked eight batters in a nohit victory over the Padres in 1970, an incredible feat that almost seems more believable than what happened at Charlottesville’s Davenport Field.
First, the finish. Virginia trailed 3-2 with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the 11th inning when Justin Novak hit a chopper to Tribe third baseman Patrick Ryan. A routine play would’ve ended the game, but Ryan bounced his throw to first baseman Colin Lipke, who couldn’t make the pick. The ball trickled into foul territory, allowing Tanner Morris to score the winning run from second base as Cavaliers players hopped over the railing of the dugout to celebrate.
Now for the really crazy part: The walk-off win clinched Virginia’s first combined no-hitter in program history, a six-pitcher effort that included seven walks, four errors, three wild pitches and a hit batter by the Cavaliers.
Bobby Nicholson started the game for Virginia, allowing one run on four walks over 51/3 innings. Blake Rohm relieved Nicholson and recorded the final two outs of the sixth inning before giving way to Grant Donahue, who allowed the Tribe to tie the game at 2-2 with the aid of a walk and a hit by pitch. After Riley Wilson and Mack Meyer combined for 11/3 innings of hitless relief, Bennett Sousa, who recorded a six-out save against Virginia Military Institute on Tuesday, took the mound with one out in the ninth. Sousa stranded the potential go-ahead runs in scoring position in the ninth and 10th innings, but his defence let him down in the 11th. After two quick outs, William & Mary took a 3-2 lead on three Virginia errors, setting up the Cavaliers’ error-fuelled walkoff win.
“You hear this all the time but if you stay around the game of baseball long enough you see something you haven’t seen before,” said Virginia manager Brian O’Connor, who is in his 15th season with the Cavaliers. “An 11-inning no-hitter, a collection of guys who pitched good but made some big pitches at clutch times. To have to come back and win it at the end and to have a nohitter on the same night, is really, really special.”
O’Connor has managed four of the six no-hitters in Virginia history. The Cavaliers’ last no-no was of the more conventional variety on April 14, 2014, when Nathan Kirby struck out 18 batters and walked one in a 4-0 win against Pittsburgh.
Just how unusual was Virginia’s latest win? Major League Baseball offers a sense. After featuring highlights of the game on SportsCenter, ESPN noted that none of the 296 no-hitters in MLB history have gone more than 10 innings and no team has scored more than two runs while being no-hit.