Virginia Tech Baseball Drops Crucial Series to Virginia

The clock is starting to approach midnight for Virginia Tech Baseball’s hopes of making the NCAA Tournament, especially after dropping two of three games to Virginia this past weekend. Here’s a look at what went wrong for the Hokies against the Cavaliers.

Game One: Virginia 12, Virginia Tech 2

In the series' opening game, the Hokies gave the ball to Brett Renfrow, keeping up with the norm. Renfrow had a strong outing, throwing six innings where he allowed just two runs.

"All of my stuff was working pretty well." Renfrow said postgame. "Got in the zone early, that helped me a lot"

Cameron LeJeune was the first out of the pen behind Brett Renfrow, and he had some trouble, giving up four runs across four hits and a walk in just 1.1 innings of work.

Preston Crowl was the next man out of the pen, and he got incredible unlucky with some weakly hit singles that both wound up scoring. He was only able to get two outs before his day was over.

Yagesh, Craytor, and Jackman combined to get the final three outs while giving up four runs across the three of them.

Offensively for the Hokies, they were anemic to say the least. They had just five hits and only one batter get on base twice before the ninth inning, with Clay Grady hitting a single and walking.

Grady's reemergence has been huge for the Hokies. He is batting a staggering .433 over his last eight games.

Aside from Grady, Tackett was able to get on base twice, which included a two-run shot that brought the UVA lead to just one run in the seventh. He was also drilled by a pitch in the ninth inning.

A big moment came in the fourth, were the Hokies had runners on the corners with one out. Sam Tackett attempted for a suicide squeeze that would have - at the time - tied the game up at one a piece.

Tackett ultimately popped up the bunt to the diving glove of Jay Woolfolk, who then turned back around and fired to third behind Clay Grady to double them off.

Aside from that, Ben Watson, Jared Davis, and Henry Cooke both had one hit a piece in the 12-2 loss.

For UVA, Jay Woolfolk got the ball on the mound and cruised to a career day. He went on to throw eight innings on 94 pitches where he allowed just two runs.

"He did a really good job getting ahead, which really helps you as a pitcher." Said Virginia Tech starter Brett Renfrow. "He expanded late, that causes some chases."

He was relieved by Wes Arrington, who got out of the last inning without surrendering a run.

For UVA, the offensive numbers alone will give you a headache.

Every UVA batter got a hit, and seven of them got at least two. Among those seven, Harrison Didawick went 4-5 on the day with two RBI and two runs scored.

Chris Arroyo and Luke Hanson both had three hit days, which includes an eight inning Arroyo homer that opened the flood gates for UVA.

"That was a pretty good sized ass whoopin' right there." said John Szefc. "It was a closer game for seven innings, and then just blew up on us after that."

Game Two: Virginia Tech 5, Virginia 4

On Saturday, the Hokies turned to Jake Marciano to give them a strong start in a much-needed game two. Marciano was up and down, going 3.2 innings where he allowed four runs on seven hits.

"He competed, he gave us length." Said Virginia Tech Associate Head Coach Kurt Elbin.

"I think he's learning - as a freshman - how to stay out there and pitch a second time through the lineup."

Following a short outing from their starter, the Hokies were in a position of uncertainty when it came to their bullpen for the day and the rest of the weekend. Who else to play hero but Grant Manning, who threw a Virginia Tech career long 5.1 innings where he allowed just two hits and didn't allow a single run to score.

"It's a lot of fun to be able to pitch out there in high intensity games like this against good teams and good hitters." Manning said postgame.

"You love the atmosphere, you love the fans cheering behind your back... it's just awesome to be able to be out there, really gets the adrenaline going"

The outing meant more to Grant Manning than the win, it would be his last outing at English Field, and potentially his college career.

Manning recalled on what this game means for him, being the last outing at English of his college career. "It meant the world, once I got done with the outing, I kinda just took a breather on the mound, realized that this, kind of, was it, this was the last outing that I had here on English Field and it just meant the world to me."

Offensively, the Hokies had more success than they did in game one, putting up five runs on nine hits.

Things got started early with a Ben Watson lead-off double and a Sam Tackett walk. Two line drives would bring those two in to give the Hokies a 2-0 first inning lead.

In the third, the Hokies would scratch across two more runs, powered by hits from Clay Grady and Henry Cooke.

The topper, though, was a sixth inning homer from David Lewis that gave the Hokies the lead that they would not relinquish.

"Unreal, [David Lewis] has had his struggles from time to time. But, you know what? In the big moments, he gets the big swings." Said Grant Manning, who entered a tie game and left with a win.

"The way I was dealing, I just knew, I was saying to the guys "Just give me one run, I can finish this game for us.".

The Hokies had a couple of multi-hit performances in this one. Ben Watson and Henry Cooke combined to go 4-9 with two RBIs.

UVA gave the ball to Bradley Hodges in game two, and he struggled early on. He only went 2.1 innings where he allowed four runs on five hits and four walks.

Following him, the UVA bullpen was dominant between Bryson Moore and Evan Blanco, who gave up just one run between the 5.2 innings that they combined to throw. That run was David Lewis' game-winning homer in the sixth.

Offensively for UVA, they were unable to string anything together against Manning. Marciano is a different story, though.

In the first four innings, UVA had poured on four runs on 7 hits.

A Henry Ford homer that knocked in Eric Becker scored their first two runs in the third.

The two that they put on in the fourth was by stringing hits together. Jacob Ference led off the inning with a walk and was scored by a James Nunnallee double. Nunnallee was then brought in from second by an Eric Becker single.

Becker and Nunnallee were the only two UVA players who were able to put together multi-hit games.

Game Three: Virginia 3, Virginia Tech 1

In the series finale, the Hokies gave the ball to Chase Swift for his first career ACC start. Swift struggled early on, giving up two runs in the first inning off of a two-out, two-run homer from Chris Arroyo.

After the first, John Szefc decided the right move was to lean on the bullpen for the game. Jacob Exum was the first out of the pen, throwing a scoreless inning.

Matheiu Curtis was then called upon. He threw arguably his best outing in a Virginia Tech uniform, going 3.2 innings where he allowed just one run, a Jacob Ference homer that traveled a whopping 467 feet.

Brendan Yagesh was the next to be called on, throwing two scoreless innings to keep the Hokies in the game.

The last man out of the pen was Cameron LeJeune, who pitched his last game at English Field in this one. He threw 1.1 scoreless innings and struck out a batter, totaling for the tenth UVA batter to go down on strikes in the game.

Offensively, the Hokies once again looked anemic at best, scoring just one run. That singular run came from a lead-off solo homer from Ben Watson. The Hokies would not score a run in the following 27 outs.

David Lewis was able to keep up his hot hitting, going 2-4 in the game-three rubber match.

For UVA, they gave the ball to the true freshman Tomas Valencius, and he was nothing short of electric. Valencius gave UVA a 6.2 inning start where he allowed just one run.

Following Valencies, Alex Markus gave UVA a 1.1 inning outing where he allowed just one hit and no runs.

Matt Lanzendorfer was the last UVA arm out of the pen, going a perfect one inning en route to recording the save.

Takeaways

This series loss was absolutely crushing for the Hokies chances at recording at at-large bid. Going into the ACC Tournament, the Hokies will almost certainly need to win the conference tournament to secure the auto bid.

They will play Stanford in the 12-13 game at 1:00 on Tuesday.