The #5/#6 Virginia Tech softball team (21-3) travels to Farmville Tuesday afternoon to take on the Longwood Lancers (9-16) in a non-conference doubleheader. The games are scheduled for 4:00 and 6:00 and will be available on ESPN+. This will be the Lancers’ home opener.

The Hokies are coming off a 3-game sweep of North Carolina that saw VT outscore the Tar Heels 27-6, extending their winning streak to 9 games.

Last weekend, Longwood registered a series win over Big South competitor Charleston Southern, losing the opening game 2-0 before rebounding to win the next two games 4-3 and 1-0. The Lancers have played a moderately difficult schedule, a slate that the NCAA ranks at #55 in SOS. Their best victory this season was a 5-3 win over Illinois on February 19th.

The strength of this Lancer team is Graduate Student Pitcher Sydney Backstrom (7-8, 3.11 ERA, 98 Ks in 92.2 innings). She was the Big South Pitcher of the Year last season after leading the conference in almost every pitching category. She has started 14 games this season and will almost certainly start one of the games against VT.

The other starter will probably be Redshirt Junior and BYU transfer Reagan Kanagawa (1-6, 6.19 ERA, 18 Ks in 32 innings), who has started 9 games this season.

Longwood has struggled at the plate this season with a team batting average of .245. The only Lancer that is batting over .300 is Freshman Infielder Jaden Pone (.316).

Below is a quick Tale of the Tape of the two teams.