No. 8 Virginia Tech Softball Dominates Final Game To Conclude Clearwater

Though a 1-3 putout is not typically a noteworthy play, it was a fitting end to the weekend for Virginia Tech, rewarding her for her incredible performance.

The “1” in question was Emma Lemley, and she rode a 15-strikeout outing to a 4-1 victory over South Florida, closing the TaxAct Clearwater Invitational on a high note.

No. 8 Virginia Tech (7-3) didn’t seem to meet expectations this weekend, losing all three ranked matchups and recording its lone win against Nebraska in which it gave the Huskers significantly more offense than they had amassed in their previous two games.

With the team looking oddly mortal, they set out to get back into a groove against South Florida (2-7), a side whose only wins came against Saint Joseph’s and an upset of Michigan last weekend.

After going 1-3 in Clearwater through four games and posing little offensive threat, Virginia Tech head coach Pete D’Amour wanted to give his ace some confidence back.

Lemley (4-1), despite notching a career-high 17 strikeouts vs. No. 10 Arizona the night before, gave up six runs against the Wildcats, even though she did not have too many poor pitches. Arizona was efficient with its chances and punished bad balls accordingly.

This time, however, Lemley looked in command all the way through. It may be surprising to learn that Tech and South Florida actually got the same number of hits — seven. The difference was experience and temperament.

Lemley retired nine of the first 10 batters she faced with Meghan Sheehan’s first inning single the lone disruption to a flurry of strikeouts.

An unsuspecting single from Tech’s Kelsey Bennett to start the third resulted in the Blacksburg squad getting on the board first. Maija Louko’s abilities as a pinch runner continued to pay massive dividends. She stole second and gave Emma Ritter the chance to bat her in, which she did.

Ritter herself was batted in three pitches later by Cameron Fagan to give the Hokies a 2-0 lead into the fourth inning.

The Bulls countered with a lead-off double followed by a single. Runners on the corners. No outs.

Some of the better pitchers in the country would still be content with just letting the one run go, but not Lemley.

She dug in and delivered absolute filth to Lydia Castro, Tieley Vaughn and Alexa Galligani, all three of whom were victims to Lemley’s elusive pitching multiple times during the afternoon. The three strikeouts ended South Florida’s hope of drawing level.

The Bulls did manage to sneak one from Lemley the following inning. Just like Bennett’s unsuspecting single in the third, Jordyn Kadlub laid down an intelligent bunt to beat the defense presented to her. She then stole second soon after. Emilee Hanlon’s critical RBI single scored Kadlub in no time.

With the margin now halved, 2-1, Tech found itself in another low-scoring affair, but was unwilling to wait around and see if it could hang on.

While Lemley continued to wrack up Ks, the Hokies began to figure out USF pitcher Antoinette Hill in the bottom of the sixth. Jayme Bailey’s walk, followed by two singles, loaded up the bases with no one yet retired.

Relief pitcher Lexie Kopko could only walk in a run and had to be replaced by Morgan Grubb. Despite her best efforts, Grubb still allowed a sacrifice fly from Teagan Thrunk, pushing the score to 4-1 in favor of Tech.

Though the game was still in reach on the scoreboard, it didn’t feel that way on the field, and Lemley made sure to validate that feeling.

She dismissed Kadlub to kick off the seventh, eliminating the threat that scored on her a couple innings prior. Allana Consolazio entered as a pinch hitter, but the only thing she was able to do was list her name as Lemley’s 15th strikeout of the afternoon.

A half-hearted single from Hallie Bryant gave the Bulls a last gasp before Hanlon chopped it back to Lemley for the 1-3 putout that ended the game.

What Lemley did was nothing short of impressive, pitching 32 strikeouts in her last 14 innings. Though she was able to savor it for the moment, she was determined to improve.

“That’s good,” Lemley told Tech Sideline about her 32 punchouts in two games. “But I need to work on making my five worst pitches better.”

Virginia Tech head coach Pete D’Amour was pleased with Sunday’s performance, but noted that the weekend as a whole had many positive and negative aspects.

“We gathered a lot of information about our team this weekend,” he said. “At times, we swung the bat extremely well, as good as any team I’ve coached. At other times, we snuck back into ‘passive mode’ while at the plate. We need to continue to push aggressiveness offensively.”

“I’m proud of the way the players competed this weekend. They always compete and play hard. There were multiple players that were ready when their number was called. I don’t care so much about ‘results’ right now as I am with, ‘Are the kids prepared?’”

He elaborated further about the strength and improvement of his pitchers, who had mixed results in the five games.

“Emma got better as the weekend went along and Lyndsey [Grein] came back against UCLA and held her own for five innings,” D’Amour said. “We were really impressed with her effort yesterday.”

Tech will certainly need to continue its preparation and development ahead of next weekend. The Hokies play in the Lone Star State Invitational in Austin, Texas, where the headline opponent is No. 9 Texas (8-1-1), the 2022 Women’s College World Series runner-up. Other opponents include Abilene Christian (3-7) and Texas Southern (0-6).

Box Score: No. 8 Virginia Tech 4, South Florida 1