Notre Dame Baseball Readies For ACC Championship
With a top seed already clinched for the upcoming ACC Championship baseball tournament, Notre Dame had little to play for this weekend in a three-game series against Virginia Tech, save for keeping positive momentum rolling.
But even with nothing on the line, the red-hot Irish still routinely took care of business and swept the Hokies 8-2, 4-0 and 7-1 to close the regular season.
The sweep ran the Notre Dame winning streak to four games and lifted the Irish to 29-10 overall and 25-10 in ACC play, easily the most wins of any league team.
The 25 ACC wins are the most ever league victories for the Irish baseball program. Not bad for a team that was picked this preseason to finish last in the eight-team ACC Atlantic Division.
In a dramatic turnaround the last two seasons under head coach Link Jarrett, Notre Dame won 10 of its 11 ACC three-game series this season, with three three-game sweeps.
“Now you turn your attention to how do you win the ACC Tournament,” Jarrett said of the 12-team event at Truist Park in Charlotte that runs from this Tuesday through Sunday.
Top-seeded Notre Dame opens its two-game pool play at 3 p.m. Wednesday with a rematch against No. 12 Virginia Tech (27-23, 16-20 ACC) then plays again at 11 a.m. Friday against No. 8 Virginia (27-22, 18-18 ACC).
The Irish swept Virginia in mid-March, 10-5, 12-4 and 8-3.
In the four pool rounds of the league tournament — each pool featuring three teams — the team with the best record will advance to the semifinals set for Saturday afternoon. If all three teams finish with a 1-1 record, the higher seeded team in the pool will move onto the semifinals.
Both of Notre Dame’s pool games will be telecast on RSN, check your local listings for availability.
And upon completion of the ACC Championship, the Irish will turn their attention to the Regional Round of the 64-team NCAA Tournament. Those pairings will be announced on Memorial Day (May 31).
As the outright regular-season league champions and the top-seed in the ACC Championship, Jarrett isn’t sweating an NCAA Tournament invite.
“The outright winner in this league,” Jarrett said, “you feel pretty good about your chance of being in a regional.”
In fact, the No. 3 Irish are expected to host one of the 16 four-team regionals at Frank Eck Stadium on the Notre Dame campus, a prestigious event Notre Dame hasn’t hosted since 2004.
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