CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBS19 SPORTS) -- The UVA Softball team is having their best season in over decade and a driving force for that has been three letters, T-I-M.

"TIM means 'this is me,'" senior catcher Leah Boggs said. "In the beginning of the year, we actually sat down and watched the Greatest Showman and there's a lot of great principles and lessons that come from that movie."

One of those lessons is the power of being different.

"I think it's really hard for people to say that I'm good at this," Virginia softball coach Joanna Hardin. "We just tried to flip that and say what do you bring to the table. This is me that song has kind of been an anthem. We are going to be ourselves."

"We are kind of the underdogs and that is shown through The Greatest Showman," senior outfield Abby Weaver said. "Just all these people so different and not expected to make such an amazing and beautiful thing, we are all able to come together and do that together."

The Cavaliers were picked to finish ninth in the ACC heading into the season, but instead, they've caught many by surprise, winning a program-best 15 ACC games on their way to earning the fourth seed in this week's ACC Tournament.

"We don't really care about what the outside world thinks of us," Hardin said. "We don't really care what the expectations are or aren't. We are going to be true to ourselves."

"Each day we are playing like its a regional and we are not treating any opponent any different," Weaver said. "We are taking each pitch like we are in the bottom of the seventh in a regional to win the game and we've been doing that and we are going to keep doing that."

But TIM isn't just a lesson for the softball field, it's one Coach Jo [Hardin] hopes her players take beyond it.

"We want them to go into the boardroom confident in their presentation," Hardin said. "We want them to go off for a job or a grad assistant or when they get married. These are life lessons of knowing who you are. Be who you are and if someone isn't allowing you to be that then they are not worth your time."