Branden Kline admits he didn't recognize a lot of the faces in the Virginia locker room when the baseball team first got together last fall.

"Just looking around the locker room, going 'I don't know you; I don't know you; I don't know you.' Then being like, 'There's one I actually do know,'" the junior pitcher said Wednesday. "So it's a little adjustment period."

Kline -- a preseason All-American who's moving from the closer role to Virginia's staring rotation -- is one of the players back from last year's team that won a school-record 56 games and the ACC title, and reached the College World Series for the second time in three years.

But head coach Brian O'Connor has to find replacements for several other All-Americans now preparing for their first pro seasons. It's a list that includes starting pitcher Danny Hultzen, drafted second overall by the Seattle Mariners last June; fellow Mariners farmhands John Hicks and Steven Proscia; and other starters Will Roberts and Tyler Wilson.

"We've had a lot of success in this program, and now we have a lot of new faces out there," O'Connor said. "And we're constantly, as coaches everyday in practice, teaching. Going back to the fundamentals of the game of baseball, and trying to instill that on an everyday basis."

The incoming class of first-year Cavaliers was ranked No. 8 in the country by Baseball America. It includes four players who were drafted last June but chose to attend UVa -- Derek Fisher (sixth round, Rangers); Mike Papi (30th round, Angels); Brandon Downes (43rd round, Red Sox); and Joel Effertz (43rd round, White Sox).

The Cavaliers open the season with three games in Myrtle Beach next weekend, starting with Boston College on February 17.

"I'm really, personally excited to see this club go out and compete, starting next weekend in Myrtle Beach," O'Connor said. "We've got a lot of youth, a lot of unproven players that this is their time and their opportunity to step up in a Virginia baseball uniform."

The Cavaliers also enter the year with lowered expectations. They were tied with Miami for third in the ACC Coastal Division in the league's preseason poll of its coaches.

"It's kind of a new feeling," said junior shortstop Chris Taylor. "The last two years I've been here, we've kind of been a veteran team. And this time I kind of feel like we're under the radar. So I'm looking forward to it. I'm real excited."

"All the guys are growing up pretty fast," said Kline. "They're learning everything a lot faster than we did as freshmen, so it should be a fun year."