“Coach Pollard’s always had my back,” he said. “He’s one of those guys you’d run through a wall for. More than just a coach, he’s a really good person, and that means a lot.”
Gracia’s career has already been a story of adaptation and perseverance. His freshman year at Duke was electric, but his sophomore campaign started rocky, batting under .200 at midseason before exploding down the stretch.
“After my freshman year, I had a plan for what I wanted to fix, but in hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best one,” Gracia reflected. “Once I realized it wasn’t working, I just went back to what I knew. It took some time, but once I got over that struggle, I kind of just took off.”
Scouts noticed. Despite early-season struggles, his plate discipline – “super, super disciplined,” as he described it – never wavered. His ability to control at-bats and adjust midseason turned Duke’s year around, bringing the Blue Devils within a game of Omaha.
Now at Virginia, Gracia is focused less on stats and more on soaking in his potential final year of college baseball.
“I just want to enjoy it,” he said. “It moves so fast. I remember moving into college like it was a month ago. I just want to slow everything down, be consistent, and hopefully make it to Omaha. That’d be the perfect way to end it.”