With Added Pitching Depth, Virginia Tech Softball Has Eyes On OKC

Virginia Tech softball head coach Pete D’Amour is shooting for an ACC championship and a Women’s College World Series appearance.

That is much easier said than done, though.

“We say [our goals] one time and your actions have to exceed those goals every day,” D’Amour said during a preseason media session on Friday. “That’s the thing with saying those goals — you can say them all you want. They’re easy to say, but hard to implement.”

The No. 23 Hokies will have a plausible shot at their goals entering the 2024 season, coming off of four consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. Last season, they finished 39-20 and advanced to the Athens Regional. In the two seasons before, they came within a win of the College World Series in Oklahoma City, falling in the Super Regional round to UCLA (2021) and Florida (2022), respectively.

Tech’s main flaw in 2023 was a lack of pitching depth. Emma Lemley — its ace — posted a 21-11 record and 3.69 earned run average in her first year as the No. 1 option on staff. Lyndsey Grein went 10-6 with a 4.45 ERA, appearing in 26 games and starting 20 of them. Molly Jacobson started five games and was respectable. But Lemley was Tech’s only pitcher D’Amour truly felt comfortable going to in a pinch, and she didn’t have much variety, which allowed opponents to hone in on her stuff.

“When you prepared for Emma last year, you were looking at a rise ball — that’s it,” D’Amour said. “When you know you have one pitch as an offensive coach, you’re preparing for that pitch. It doesn’t matter anymore if it’s 62 or 70 [mph] — if you have one pitch, good offenses are going to catch up to it.”

In the offseason, Lemley began working on “some new pitches” — in her words — to not completely rely on the rise ball. She threw 212.2 innings in 2023, which took a toll, but D’Amour said she found her velocity again over the offseason.

D’Amour brought on Cassie Grizzard, a sophomore lefty who pitched at Louisville in 2023. In 27 innings, Grizzard had a 5.19 ERA and a 1-1 record.

“She was talented in high school and when she came on the market and I saw a 65 [mph] left hander with a good changeup, it’s pretty hard to pass that up,” D’Amour said.

Grizzard attended Midlothian High School and is one of seven players from the Commonwealth on the roster. Tech was always on her radar.

“I grew up a Hokie; my family has been big Virginia Tech fans,” Grizzard said. “… When I came on campus, I started talking to [D’Amour] and I talked to [assistant coach Josh Johnson]. I just knew it was the place to be. It just felt like home because it has been home for so long. It was good to be back.”

The Hokies have six pitchers on staff: Lemley, Grein, Jacobson, Grizzard, freshman Emma Mazzarone and freshman Haley McManus. For the first time in D’Amour’s tenure, they’ll be able to mix and match arms, which will keep opponents off-balance, as opposed to a one- or two-woman game that is more predictable. 

“No one pitcher can go pitch every single inning of every single game throughout the season — we play 60 or more games this season,” Lemley said. “The big thing that we’ve learned from each other is how to trust each other and how to know that, if I come out, it’s not a diss at me. We need to do what’s best for the team, in that my fellow pitchers have my back and they’re going to get me out of any situation that I’ve put myself in if I can’t get out myself.”

The Hokies also return a core of position players, including outfielder Emma Ritter, infielders Cameron Fagan, Addy Greene, Maija Louko and Teagan Thrunk, utility players Bre Peck and Rachel Castine, plus catcher Kylie Aldridge. They might not hit the second-most home runs in the country this year — it’ll be difficult to follow up their 100 from 2023 — but they could produce in different ways.

“Every team is different — and every coach in every sport will tell you that,” D’Amour said. “Looking this year, I think we’re more athletic than last year. Are we going to hit 100 home runs? I don’t know — we have the potential to — but we can run, so maybe we run a little bit more.”

Junior infielder Cori McMillan, who transferred to Virginia Tech from Radford in the offseason after hitting .375 in 49 games, will certainly play a role. The National Fastpitch Coaches Association named her a Top-25 Freshman of the Year Finalist in 2022 after leading the Highlanders with a .365 average and 14 home runs.

“She hit a homer off us [when Radford played Virginia Tech on April 18, 2023],” D’Amour said. “I was standing on third base and coaching against them last year and I was like, ‘That kid is pretty good.’ She’s got five tools, she can do everything on the softball field.”

Tech will spend the first three weekends of the season in Alabama, Arizona and Georgia to play three teams who finished top-35 in the 2023 RPI (Auburn, Cal and Georgia), its first opportunity to start to piece things together. The Hokies can’t — and won’t — focus on the big picture just yet; the first few series on the road, beginning with their season opener on Friday, Feb. 9 vs. Illinois, will test them and — D’Amour hopes — help prepare them for ACC play and beyond.

“We’re going to face good pitching right away,” D’Amour said. “The challenge when you schedule hard early in the season is you’re facing really good teams. You could start two-for-20 and get three wins, but is that two-for-20 kid in a slump or are they feeling bad about themselves? The challenge for us is to play as a team, win games and don’t worry about the stats because that group is preparing for the long run.”