#13 Virginia Tech Hokie Baseball sweeps BC on winning streak, Marshall squeezes

We apologize for the late check-in due to the busy crossover season.

The story of the end of winter is long gone. While we'll continue to cover both basketball teams and their unfortunate travails, it's time to get back to some serious spring coverage: baseball coverage.

Since checking in before the mayhem, Tech had put together a dominant run-rule shortened game against a normally pretty good East Tennessee State team. There was much debate about the 14-4 result, but the facts on the table remained. ETSU was a good team with a solid record, but it was by no means a cupcake. They had just arrived in Blacksburg as the bus was leaving the station, fueled by a big series win against Louisville at home.

The Hokies were heading back to New England to play Boston College at home. No one expected this series to be easy. The story was that a split was realistic and that a road trip would be a surefire way to win the series.

Well, the Hokies not only won the series, they had a scoring outburst in the final three innings on Sunday, defeating the Eagles at home by almost one run. No, it wasn't that easy for the series as a whole, but of the many ways to win a baseball game, Tech was able to pull off three different methods, including blowing away the curse of splitting a doubleheader. I did. (Hokies sweep twice!)

Game 1 – 9th inning come-from-behind brawl

The game featured small early ball runs by the Hokies, who began to catch up with Brett Renfroe's relatively solid start for two straight innings, and by the bottom of the fourth, the Eagles had managed to grab a bead and rack up the runs. bag. The fourth inning somehow became “their inning” as David Shoemaker took two pitchers (Renfroe and Brady Kiltner) off the mound before the bleeding stopped. However, the five points they scored were the last of the game.

Shoemaker pitched three solid innings of relief, allowing just three hits and leaving a goose egg on the Hokies' scoreboard. Ultimately, the rule for most relief pitchers is that after three innings and a certain number of pitches, their arms start to break, so Andrew Sentlinger was sent in to close out the BC half of the eighth inning, and Jordan St. Little finally slammed the door. As a baseball statistical curiosity, St. Ringer will be credited with the win and Little will be credited with the save on a three-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth inning. By the way, this is about a game.

The Hokies never gave up on this. After that five-run debacle and the Eagles taking a two-run lead, the Hokie offense remained steady. They took a two-run lead in the top of the second inning. Eddie Micheletti drew a leadoff walk, and the rest is history: singles and small balls. Micheletti and Ben Watson crossed the bat before the Eagles ended the inning. The top of the 5th inning started with a hit by a pitch by Sam Tackett (Everyone knows what I say about leadoff walks and HBP.) Sam scores on Clay Grady's triple, then Grady scores on Christian Martin's sacrifice fly.

Of course, the 4-1 lead disappeared in the bottom of that disastrous fifth inning, but Tech's offense was far from over. The bullpen stopped the bleeding, but the Eagles' pen didn't have the same luck against the Hokies. Clay Grady crossed the plate again with a double off Chris Cannizzaro, but Tech only trailed 5-6 in the top of the 9th inning.

In the 9th inning, the Hokies pulled off a rally that turned everyone's hats upside down and inside out. Ethan Gibson took the third pitch of his at bat to the left and hit the lead single. Clay Grady (who scored three points in the game) issued a walk, and Christian Martin, after a count of 3 and 2, sent a pitch over the right-field fence. This three-run home run was the game-winner for the afternoon. For the Hokies, Carson DeMartini's HBP led to an RBI that went beyond the plate, and Eddie Micheletti hit a huge double to deep right-center for insurance.

In the bottom of the 9th inning, Jordan Little slammed the door in the Eagles' face again. He allowed a double, but ended up getting a no-burger.

Game 2 – Hold on and stop to settle the ninth pitcher's showdown.

The pictures in this game are worth a thousand “wows”. Henry Cook prevented a tying run in the bottom of the 8th inning with a perfect relay.

We said this series would be a tense series all the way to the end, and Friday's doubleheader situation put some torque into that knot. The second game started with Wyatt Parliaments. Wyatt allowed a walk and a triple to lead by one run in the first inning, but the Hokies took the lead in the top of the first inning with a triple by Chris Cannizzaro and a sacrifice hit by Carson DeMartini, resulting in a tie. Congress then continued the next four innings without runners. He pitched five innings, allowing three hits, one run, one walk, and six strikeouts.

Meanwhile, the Hokies increased their scoring with Henry Cook's solo shot and Ben Watson's play. Watson also had a good performance in the bottom of the fourth inning for the Hokies. After that, the Hokies offense started to get a little sleepy. The big excitement came in the bottom of the eighth inning, when Tech was leading 4-1 and Matthew Shivering was in serious trouble after relieving a embattled Jeremy Neff. Next, Preston Kaul, with two outs on the board, but Fullbag allowed a double-scoring two runs with the tying run heading to the plate. Sometimes full-bore panic can result in a beautiful, perfect play. That's because a relay from left fielder Chris Cannizzaro to shortstop Clay Grady to at-bat Henry Cook caught BC's Vince Cimini in the back before his hand hit the plate. This ended the inning, the bleeding stopped, and the ninth inning was lifted.

Jordan Little made his second save of the day, striking out the side to keep the Eagles off the bat. The Hokies won the doubleheader and the series. They spent a rainy Saturday thinking about the possibility of another broom hoist for the series and season on Sunday.

Game 3 – Slow Fuse Explosion Men

We were blessed with plenty of weather on Sunday, but it certainly wasn't a great day for baseball. With temperatures in the low 30s and cloudy skies, conditions felt like mid-November football. Griffin Steeg, who became a regular starter for the Hokies in Game 3, appeared on the Brighton Bump and pitched four innings. ¹⁄₃ A great innings of ball despite a 101 pitch effort. Stieg had an excellent performance at the collegiate level with six strikeouts, four hits, and just two earned runs. He was throwing a lot of pitches to strike out batters, which might have made pitching coaches a little nervous, but he was striking out batters. He eventually had to rest his arm, but doing so gave BC a little bit of breathing room to make up for the run differential in mid-relief Hokies Matthew Shivering. The score of 3-2 wasn't a very comfortable lead, and Shivering was tagged with an unearned run, tying the score at three each.

Again, the baseball scoring was fickle, giving him runs instead of relief pitcher Brady Cartner, but Cartner eventually calmed down and closed out the inning without allowing an earned run. With that frame thin, the Hokies got another out and prevented the game-tying shot from crossing the plate. That might allow them to score the equalizer, but in the end it doesn't mean much. Kiltner pitched two good innings and will give his bullpen guys some rest.

The big thing happened in the top of the seventh inning when Carson DeMartini threw a horrifying leadoff walk. As the score tied all three and the game neared its end, someone in the maroon and orange had to do something. That was Chris Cannizzaro. He didn't waste much time and carried the third pitch of his at-bat out of the park for a two-run hit. Eddie Micheletti and Ben Watson then each issued walks, sending BC's pitchers to the dugout. He quickly threw the ball away, forcing both Micheletti and Watson into scoring position. But it didn't really matter because Henry Cook hit a triple to right-center field. That way, they would have crossed the plate regardless of where the base hit came from. David McCann then worked on the walk. There's a runner on the corner, no outs, and late in the game, he pulls the pitcher to test someone who might be able to stop the blood flow. A KO was necessary because a point would be scored if there was contact. That didn't work either. He walked Ethan Gibson to load up. He struck out Clay Grady for the first out of the inning, but then hit Christian Martin for an RBI HBP. He then threw a wild pitch over the catcher to score David McCann. With everyone moving forward, a runner on third base, and the first batter of the inning up again, Carson DeMartini hit a sacrifice fly, scoring Gibson. Cannizzaro jumped out, but sustained significant damage. Tech took a 10-3 lead with a total of seven runs in the inning, which included extra-base hits and small balls.

The rest was up to the bullpen. Tech was able to score again in the eighth inning, scoring two more runs to make it 12-3, but a two-inning rally was nearly impossible at that point. Kiltner went 3 up and 3 down in the seventh, and BC did its best to mount a rally in the eighth with Jacob Stretch. The coaching staff let Jacob play, and BC was sent to the dugout after just two hits crossed the plate. Grant Manning was sent in to close the door. Unfortunately in terms of ERA, he set up two cement mixers and the Eagles jacked two in a row with two outs. Eventually, Manning hit on something and struck out the last batter as he watched the ball go by.

Marshall came on Tuesday, March 26th and scared some people

This game was a pitching battle between committees. The Thundering Herd arrived at the stadium looking to do some serious damage. They almost did. After the Hokies scored three runs in the first inning to make it 3-1, Tech's pitching staff settled down, and Hurd only added one run in the top of the ninth after scoring one run in the top of the first. . They were unable to close the gap by more than two points in the second inning, and the game ended with a “very baseball-like'' score of 4-2. It was a great effort from both bullpen staffs, but Tech only trailed by two points.

The final inning was a bit tricky for Jordan Little, but he ultimately held off Hurd's last three batters with a grounder, a strikeout, and a flyout.

So, before the Hokies went home for a little while, a broom came to them. The big ACC series against Pitt begins Thursday in time for Easter Sunday.

And a note of a wonderful event., Hokie Baseball is getting a lot of attention and rankings everywhere.We watch D1 Baseball the most, so they 13th place Hokies As of Monday's vote.

Go Hokies!!!!