Baseball

Virginia’s Tappen, Louisville’s Poland Earn ACC Baseball Weekly Honors

GREENSBORO, N.C. (theACC.com) – Virginia outfielder Alex Tappen has been named the ACC Player of the Week, and Louisville right-hander Jared Poland earned ACC Pitcher of the Week honors.

ACC weekly baseball honors are determined by a vote of a select media panel and announced on Mondays throughout the regular season.

Tappen hit .611 (11-for-18) with 14 RBI in a 5-0 week for the 10th-ranked Virginia Cavaliers, headlined by a weekend sweep against Boston College. The graduate student drove in a career-high six runs and was 4-for-4 at the plate in the series finale against Eagles on Sunday. Tappen hit three home runs during the week, including one in each of the last two games against BC.

Hailing from Lower Gwynedd, Pennsylvania, Tappen recorded a hit in all five games, has reached base safely in 19 straight games and has an eight-game hitting streak. He also scored six runs and hit two doubles.

Poland pitched seven scoreless innings against top-ranked Notre Dame on Saturday to lead Louisville to an 8-1 series-clinching win. He allowed just three hits and struck out a career-high 10 batters. The senior righty fanned at least one batter in every inning, highlighted by a pair of called strikeouts in the fifth inning.

The Fishers, Indiana, native helped the Cardinals to a three-game sweep of the top-ranked Irish. Poland is currently on a 14.1 inning scoreless streak and is the only qualified (minimum 1.0 inning pitched per total number of team games) ACC pitcher with an earned run average (ERA) below 1.00 with a 0.90 clip.

Seven ACC baseball teams are ranked among the top 25 of this week’s D1Baseball Poll - tied for the most of any conference. Florida State headlines the group at No. 7, followed by No. 10 Virginia, No. 12 Notre Dame, No. 13 North Carolina, No. 14 Georgia Tech, No. 18 Louisville and No. 24 Clemson.

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