No. 11 Virginia Tech played eight games over the last nine days. Three against a potential NCAA tournament team in Charlotte, two more against UMass-Lowell, a squad still trying to find its footing early in the year, and three against Boston College, one of the most surprising stories in college baseball.
And in that, after winning the first six games of that stretch, which included a nine-game win streak, came some fatigue, some ineffectiveness and some losses.
So there were the Hokies in the ninth inning of a doubleheader on Saturday in Game 2, bringing the tying run to the on-deck circle. They could have waved the last three outs in and rolled over in the ninth. But they didn’t even as they trailed 7-3 after dropping Game 1, 8-5, on Saturday at English Field.
Both games resulted in a loss for Virginia Tech (10-4, 1-2 ACC). The second finished 7-3 after it opened ACC play on Friday with a victory. Both outings were similar for Tech: starters were effective in their respective outings. Drue Hackenberg surrendered three earned runs (five total) in 6 ⅓ innings in the afternoon while Anthony Arguelles fired five-plus innings of two-run ball.
“This is kind of like the Georgia Tech series last year,” Tech catcher Gehrig Ebel said. “We were on our high horse after we just beat a really good ECU team, who ended up being in a Super Regional last year. And we just swept a really good Charlotte team [this year] and got a little disappointed after this weekend. But I feel like we’ll definitely learn from it.”
But that’s where the wheels sort of fell off the track for Tech on Saturday. The bats – which hit the ball hard all day – didn’t have any luck. In Game 1, Tech trailed 5-2 in the sixth before climbing back to within two runs and then was down 6-5 before a two-run single from Boston College’s Vince Cimini in the top of the ninth inning put the game away.
In that outing, Tyler Dean stranded multiple runners to hold the score at 6-5, giving his offense a chance to tie it in the bottom of the eighth. But the run support never came. And then he had Cimini with the bases-loaded with two outs and two strikes before a softly-hit ground ball ran the score up to 8-5.
“I think Boston College is a lot better than [last year], they’re just really very good,” Tech head coach John Szefc said. “They literally beat us. We got a lot of stuff we have to work on to get better, but like we were thoroughly beaten by a good team. There’s no doubt about that.”
In Game 2, with Boston College’s Travis Honeyman at the plate in a 2-1 game, Kiernan Higgins had loaded the bases before Honeyman unleashed on a baseball that hit the foul pole for a grand slam.
But that game almost had a different feel than Game 1. Arguelles shoved from the first pitch, setting down 12 of the first 15 he faced. The Hokies gave him a 1-0 lead in the first, but the bats soon fell quiet after that. He ran into trouble by surrendering a double to Honeyman with Barry Walsh on first that moved Walsh to third base.
“I was just trying to get ahead, throw strikes and pound the zone,” Arguelles said. “I just had that mentality to go right at guys.”
With no outs in the sixth, Szefc opted to go to Jonah Hurney out of the bullpen. Hurney then surrendered two consecutive sacrifice flies that scored both Walsh and Honeyman. And in the next inning, Honeyman blasted his grand slam that Tech couldn’t overcome.
In the bottom of the seventh, Carson Jones pinch-hit and roped a lead-off double and then scored after stealing third and taking home on an errant throw down to third by BC’s catcher. It drew the score a little closer, 6-2, but until the ninth, that was the closest Tech got.
In the top of the ninth, Cameron Leary singled home a run that increased the Eagles’ lead to 7-2. But Tech didn’t just roll over in the bottom half.
Garrett Michel started the inning with a single. Then Ebel, who had four hits and caught all 18 innings on Saturday, ripped a double down the right field line. Next, with one out, Christian Martin singled home Michel. But Tech couldn’t produce anything else after Carson DeMartini and Chris Cannizzaro struck out to end the night against one of the ACC’s hottest teams.
“We sent the tying-run to the on-deck circle,” Arguelles said about Tech’s resiliency. “What more could you ask for?”
Box Score: Boston College 8, No. 11 Virginia Tech 5
Box Score: Boston College 7, No. 11 Virginia Tech 3
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Recommend putting series results clearly in the first paragraph. Just a suggestion.
The ACC (and certainly the SEC) is big boy baseball. No weekends off against ACC teams. We’ll learn from it.
Hopefully we’ll learn to be more disciplined at the plate. BC had a lot more walks, and of course, many scored. Hits were fairly equal.