Ratcliffe: O'Connor fondly remembers magical 2011

Brian O’Connor will never forget the most singular proudest moment of his career to this point.

It came last June 13 after his Virginia baseball team had virtually come back from the dead with two outs in the bottom of the ninth for a dramatic 3-2 win over visiting UC-Irvine before a frantic sellout crowd at Davenport Field. The win captured the NCAA Super Regional and vaulted the Cavaliers into the College World Series for the second time in three years.

Considering the circumstances, for a baseball coach, how could it get any better than that?

O’Connor, who has directed UVa to 372 wins and eight straight NCAA Tournament appearances, always preaches to his players, everyone in his program and — heck, even the Cavalier fans — about loyalty. So, when the Wahoo faithful didn’t give up when the moment turned dark in the late innings of last year’s battle with the Anteaters, it meant so much to the Virginia skipper.

“The fact that we did not advance to Omaha at the end of 2010 and we got beat on our home field (by underdog Oklahoma), and the disappointment that everybody shared with that … the fact that we were in the same situation a year later … the No. 1 team in the country, we’re supposed to win the game, and our fans don’t leave because they believe that we can still do it …”

O’Connor didn’t finish his thought. He didn’t need to. It was obvious by the sparkle in his 40-year-old eyes what that moment meant to him.

“I don’t know that I will ever coach another game like that one,” O’Connor said Tuesday. “What I mean by that, was because what was at stake.

“We will win a lot more games where we come from behind in the ninth inning with two outs,” O’Connor continued. “But not under the same conditions: No. 1 team in the nation, supposed to win, didn’t win the year before, the pressure and expectations that came along with that and the fact that we actually did it.”

With the thriller-diller comeback that cheated The Reaper, the Cavaliers mounted a rally that was one for the ages. The fact that it came at Davenport and resulted in a trip to the CWS, O’Connor can’t conceive a better moment thus far.

Sure, he has other special moments in his Virginia career, watching sick-as-a-dog Danny Hultzen pitch in the Series against South Carolina, winning that final Super Regional game at Ole Miss to advance to the program’s first CWS, beating the unbeatable Stephen Strasburg along the way, all warm memories.

“I will never forget Jared King (now a senior), when he’s a freshman and he’s in the lineup against Florida State on a Friday night and drives in our first run in a blowout against [the Seminoles], and the next day he’s got to go to his mother’s funeral (she has passed a few days before),” O’Connor said. “Just the toughness that kid showed in going through all that.”

The coach felt that beating Irvine and returning to Omaha for the second time in three years was a huge step forward for the UVa program.

“There’s been a lot of teams that have been to Omaha once, but the fact that you can back it up two years later, I think that was special and important for what we’re trying to do here,” O’Connor said.

Now, the skipper is about to launch his ninth season. The schedule opens Feb. 17-19 in the Caravelle Resort Tournament in Myrtle Beach. This time, there won’t be as much pressure or expectations on the Wahoos.

The team has had 17 players drafted the past two years and outside projections aren’t that high. Virginia was picked to finish third in the ACC’s Coastal Division and was preseason ranked at No. 33 nationally, far from the spotlight of recent years when the Cavaliers sat in the catbird’s seat of the various baseball polls.

After all that success, the veteran coach is actually invigorated by the challenge of molding the unheralded leftovers and newcomers into greatness.

“We have a lot of guys that, now, it’s their time to shine in this uniform,” O’Connor said. “Whether it be a first-year or some guys that have been here two years and they haven’t had to play major roles because of the last two classes. It’s their chance to show what they’re capable of.”

So far, the skipper likes what he sees. The unseasonably warm weather has permitted the Cavaliers to scrimmage everyday outside in their ballyard rather than being cooped up indoors.

O’Connor has seen what he terms as substantial improvement, especially in some of the new players that will be relied on to keep Virginia’s recent tradition alive.

They might even provide a few more unforgettable moments to O’Connor’s career.