With Emotions High, No. 11 Virginia Tech Wins First ACC Game Of Season

As soon as Virginia Tech associate head coach Kurt Elbin watched Carson Jones only receive six or so seconds in between a 1-0 pitch and a called strike, he accelerated for Jones, asking for timeout to talk to his left-handed hitter in the second inning.

In his eyes, Boston College starter John West was working too quickly in between pitches. Elbin was trying to get West out of his groove by calling Jones over to talk about the at-bat – and because he thought that home plate umpire Gregory Street wasn’t giving Tech’s hitters enough time to get set.

So, as Elbin walked toward home plate, he and Street exchanged a few words – no curse words were picked up by the nearby microphone – and Street quickly tossed Elbin after an “action clock dispute,” per a statement from Virginia Tech.

In a game that could’ve gotten away for the Hokies, even after tying the score up at one with Eddie Eisert’s home run two batters before Jones stepped up to the plate, Elbin’s ejection – almost to a tee – fired up their dugout. 

“I don’t think it was warranted,” Tech head coach John Szefc said after the game. “It’s one thing if you use foul language, but that wasn’t the case. We’ll move on from it, and I actually thought that it gave our team a little energy right there.”

All of the emotions rampaging through Tech set up the Hokies to play one of their best innings of the season. Griffin Green was perfect in the top of the third and then the offense, powered by three home runs, a triple and three walks scored seven runs in the bottom half, propelled the Hokies to a 13-3 victory in their conference opener over Boston College at English Field on Friday afternoon.

Green, who works very well off emotion going back to his starts last year, tossed just 11 pitches as he set the Eagles (10-2, 0-1 ACC) down in order in the top of the third. He yielded a groundout to open the frame on the first pitch before striking out the next two hitters on 10 pitches, overpowering BC’s in the process.

“[Green] was really important for a lot of reasons, not just because it got our guys off on the right foot, but because he gave us a chance to win the series tomorrow,” Szefc said. “So, it was big in a lot of ways, and to me, the biggest part of the game.”

And then, in a 1-1 game, as the Hokies (10-2, 1-0 ACC) usually do, they hung a crooked number up in the bottom half. It began with David Bryant’s triple – his first of two extra-base hits of the afternoon – and ended with Jones’s three-run homer that gave Tech a seven-run lead. In between, Christian Martin walked with Bryant standing on third and Carson DeMartini’s three-run home run broke the early one-all tie. 

“Hitting is very contagious and you saw that with us last year,” DeMartini said. “One guy smokes a ball and that’s all it takes. And I think, throughout our lineup, it’s like, ‘Okay he smoked it, so now we gotta start rolling.’”

Soon after, Jack Hurley hit his fourth home run of the season on a solo shot with two outs. Next, Eisert and Garrett Michel walked in succession, and finally, Jones’s 441-foot shot capped the inning off and almost made Elbin’s ejection an afterthought, especially after Green threw another flawless inning in the next frame with two more strikeouts.

“Griff’s our leader,” DeMartini said. “ I mean, he is hands down our guy. If something needs to get done, it goes through him. … He’s the voice, he’s the guy you look to.”

Green was efficient in his first four innings of work as he set down 12 of the first 13 hitters he faced – the only blemish he surrendered over that span was a two-out solo home run to Joe Vetrano in the bottom of the first. 

“The past two outings, I’ve been struggling a lot,” Green said, “but they believe in me and I got some work with [pitching coach Ryan] Fecteau and he said, ‘You know, your stuff plays. You just have to be confident.’ … It felt good to finally be back at it.”

In the fifth, Green worked into some trouble. He forced Cameron Leary to fly out to start the inning before loading the bases. As a result, he was lifted in favor of Henry Weycker, who did nothing but deal in his 3 ⅔ innings.

Weycker surrendered a sacrifice fly to the first hitter he faced – the second and final runner charged to Green – and then worked his way out of the jam by forcing Parker Landwher to ground out to first base. Then he set down nine of the next hitters he faced before handing it to Siverling to finish off the Eagles.

But before Siverling even trotted in from the bullpen, his offense extended its lead by five more runs when Jones reached on a single to load the bases with no outs in the bottom of the eighth. Gehrig Ebel grounded out to second base to drive in the first run, Bryant doubled a pair home while Martin smoked a two-run blast – his first of the season – before the inning came to a close.

And once Siverling touched the baseball (and after Owen DeShazo hit a solo homer in the ninth), the Hokies comfortably watched their fourth-year reliever end the afternoon on a simple ground out to short.

“That might’ve been our most complete game,” Szefc said.

Box Score: No. 11 Virginia Tech 13, Boston College 3