The No. 23 Virginia softball team will conclude its home schedule with a three-game series against NC State at Palmer Park, beginning this weekend, according to an April 23 announcement from the university.
This series marks both Alumni Weekend and Senior Day for the Cavaliers. Alumni of the Virginia softball program are set to return, and five seniors will be recognized following Sunday’s finale. Additionally, UVA softball trading card sets will be distributed while supplies last throughout the weekend.
Fans can watch all three games via ACCNX on ESPN.com or through the ESPN app. Live statistics are available on VirginiaSports.com, and updates will also be posted on X (@UVASoftball).
Virginia has achieved a strong home record this season at 21-4, with only three losses in Atlantic Coast Conference play. The Cavaliers enter the weekend ranked No. 28 in RPI after facing nineteen opponents from the RPI top fifty.
Player highlights include Bella Cabral’s return to action last weekend against Clemson, where she hit a home run in her first game back. Cabral and Macee Eaton are tied for most home runs on the team this season with eleven each; both have entered UVA’s top ten for career home runs—Cabral with twenty-seven and Eaton with twenty-six.
Jade Hylton recently set a new school record for career runs scored at UVA, surpassing Heather Field’s previous mark by reaching one hundred seventy-nine runs. Eaton is also making her mark: her fifty-eight RBIs this year rank third in single-season history at UVA after setting a program record last year with sixty-three RBIs. She leads the team offensively with a .448 batting average and is sixth overall in conference standings.
The Cavaliers’ pitching staff holds second place in league ERA (3.14) and leads several categories including strikeout-to-walk ratio (2.22), WHIP (1.32), and ranks second for fewest hits allowed per seven innings (5.99). Courtney Layne tops the ACC in strikeout-to-walk ratio (4.29), is second in WHIP (1.08), and third in ERA (2.33). Three pitchers from Virginia are among the conference leaders for fewest hits allowed per seven innings.
Historically, NC State leads their matchup series against Virginia thirty to twenty-five over fifty-five meetings; however, Virginia has won ten of their last thirteen encounters since 2019.
