No. 14 Virginia Tech Baseball Falls In Close Loss To College of Charleston

Friday evening’s game between No. 14 Virginia Tech and the College of Charleston was supposed to be one of the best pitching matchups nationwide. The Cougars’ Ty Good, making his first start since being named to the CAA’s First Team a season ago, was facing Griffin Green, the Hokies’ workhorse for the past two years. A gloomy February afternoon that pushed the first pitch back by 45 minutes seemed like an unfit stage for the two.

As it was, they were hardly involved in the drama in Charleston’s 5-2 win in Mount Pleasant, S.C. Good dominated while Green nearly matched him. Both pitchers departed – Green after 4 ⅔ one-hit, one-run innings and Good after five shutout innings – and the baseball was given to both bullpens.

“We got a good start out of Griffin, but outside of that, we didn’t really play well,” Tech head coach John Szefc told Tech Sideline after the loss. “It really wasn’t what you were looking for.”

First, VT’s Jonah Hurney finished off the bottom of the fifth inning with a strikeout, standing a runner on second as Virginia Tech trailed, 1-0, thanks to the Cougars’ first inning run.

Once the sixth began and Good watched the rest of the game from the dugout, Jack Hurley led off the inning with a walk against Andrew Duval. Then Carson DeMartini doubled him home two pitches later to tie the score at one. Carson Jones followed that up with a two-out single the opposite way into left field to give the Hokies their only lead of the day, 2-1.

To begin the bottom of the sixth inning, Tech stumbled. Hurney walked the first hitter he faced, then drilled the second. Quickly, though, he worked his way back as he struck out Luke Wood on five pitches. That’s when Szefc opted to go with Kiernan Higgins out of the bullpen.

Higgins, who was more than solid when called upon for Tech last season, yielded a four-pitch walk to load the bases, one of six walks Tech’s staff issued on Friday. And then he hung a 1-0 pitch to Khyree Miller that Miller blasted over the left field wall for a grand slam. 

“It’s tough to win on the road when you give up 13 free bases,” Szefc said. “It’s always hard to win when you give up a grand slam.”

And once the baseball landed, the Cougars had a three-run lead, 5-2. Higgins worked through three more outs before handing the baseball to Matthew Siverling for two outs, who then gave the ball to Brady Kirtner for a double play that ended the eighth.

On the flip side, after Chris Cannizzaro recorded a lead-off single to open the game, Good didn’t allow a single hit in the rest of his five innings. And once Duval yielded DeMartini’s double and Jones’ go-ahead single, Virginia Tech didn’t record another knock.

“They’re veteran guys,” Szefc said about Cannizzaro, DeMartini and Jones. “It’s what they’re supposed to be doing. Unfortunately, we didn’t really have anyone behind them.”

And finally, once William Privette stepped on the mound for the Cougars, the game was seemingly over. Privette, who worked a 0.91 ERA in 59 ⅓ innings last year, shut the door on Virginia Tech the rest of the way, throwing two flawless innings while picking up four strikeouts.

Everything that happened after the bottom of the sixth inning, in which Tech gave up four runs and only got on base once, was an equation for a tough loss on the road.

“We’ll be fine behind [Drue] Hackenberg tomorrow,” Szefc said. “We just gotta swing the bat a little more.”

Last season, after Virginia Tech was swept by Georgia Tech to open ACC play, Szefc said he had wished he had prepared his team better by playing on the road at least once before heading down to Atlanta, Ga. 

He got his wish this spring against the CAA’s top projected team. The Hokies will certainly have their hands full for the rest of the weekend.

“You’re going to get adversity when you play a good team on the road,” Szefc said. “And you’re going to have to come back and play well tomorrow and even the series up and bring it to Sunday with a chance to win the series, which we’re always talking about. And that’s really what we’re trying to do on any kind of a weekend. You’re going to do it in different ways. Sometimes it’s [with a win] on Friday, sometimes it’s not.”

Box Score: Link