Virginia Tech Baseball: Hokies Fall in First ACC Series

The Hokies (7-8, 1-2) limped to a 1-3 record this week. Tech fell to the College of Charleston (8-4, 0-0) and then lost their opening ACC series of the season to the Wake Forest Demon Deacons (11-5, 2-1).

Wednesday, College of Charleston @ VT, L: 8-3

The unpredictable Blacksburg weather relented on Wednesday and the Hokies finally kicked off their English Field slate against the visiting College of Charleston Cougars. Senior Alex Perez started on the mound for the Hokies and he consistently pounded the strike zone throughout his four innings of work. Perez's solid day was ultimately undone by several defensive mistakes that the Hokies couldn't fight back from and they dropped the mid-week contest by a score of 8-3.

Perez trotted out to the mound to the opening beats of Enter Sandman and immediately retired the Cougars without any trouble. After the Hokies went down quietly in the bottom half of the first, Perez worked around a Blake Butler double and kept the Cougars scoreless in the second inning. Brendon Hayden led off the bottom of the second and ripped the first pitch of the inning well over the right field fence to give the Hokies an early 1-0 lead. The lead was short-lived, though, as the wheels came tumbling off of the Hokies defense in the third. Bradley Jones led off the top of the third with a single up the middle, but Perez was able to retire Champ Rowland to put one out on the board. Ryan Brown then hit a two-hopper directly at shortstop Ricky Surum which should have been an inning-ending double play, but Surum was unable to corral the hard hit ball which placed runners at first and second. A Cougar single through the right side of the infield scored Jones and then a dropped fly ball by Sean Keselica in leftfield allowed Brown to score. Another single to right brought in a third run for the Cougars and right fielder Miguel Ceballos missed his cutoff man to allow the runners to advance an extra base. A third RBI single to right would bring home the fourth unearned run for the Cougars and even though the Hokies turned a 5-4-3 double play to end the disastrous inning, the damage had been done.

After the game, Coach Mason seemed especially disturbed with how the Hokies allowed one error to escalate into such an important inning for the Cougars.

"Ricky should be able to make an error, it's a big error and he knows that, but we as a team should be able to make one error and not have it be two or three," said Mason. "We should be able to get out of it and give up one run or two runs or perhaps even no runs."

Even though Perez had pitched well, Tech trailed by 3 runs, but the Hokies answered in the bottom of the third with an RBI single from Ceballos to cut the Cougar lead to two. Luis Collazo replaced Perez in the fifth inning and struggled with his control, allowing three Cougars to score off of just three hits. Facing a 7-2 deficit, Andrew Mogg continued his solid day at the plate in the sixth with a line-drive up the middle to score Keselica.

Coach Mason swapped Collazo and Connor Coward in the sixth and Coward ate up some quality innings for the Hokies bullpen. After recording six outs fairly easily, Coward tired in the eighth and surrendered two consecutive walks and a single to let the Cougars scrape across their last run of the day. Down 8-3 heading into the bottom of the ninth, the Hokies put two men on base but were unable to mount a comeback as Erik Payne struck out to bring the disappointing home-opener to a close.

It was clear cleaning up the defensive issues plaguing the Hokies was a top priority for the Hokies.

"Yeah, it's definitely frustrating, but it's not anything we can't fix, so we'll keep working hard and we're going to fix it," said junior catcher Andrew Mogg.

Saturday, VT @ Wake Forest, W: 12-7

The Virginia Tech bats came alive as the Hokies opened up their ACC season with a doubleheader split against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. Sean Keselica got the ball in Game 1 and earned his first win of the year despite struggling through six innings thanks to a great performance from the entire lineup.

Wake took an early lead in the first off an RBI single from Nate Mondou, but Mac Caples evened up the game in the second with a solo blast to center. Erik Payne hit the second Hokies home run of the day in the third to give the Hokies a one-run edge. The Demon Deacons answered with a grand slam from cleanup hitter Will Craig to bring the score to 5-2 after just three innings.

The Hokies cut the lead to two in the fourth when Caples led off the inning with a walk and then advanced to third on an Andrew Mogg double. Ricky Surum hit into a fielder's choice to score Caples, but Saige Jenco and Alex Perez each grounded out to second to end the inning. Phil Sciretta tied the game at 5 in the fifth inning with a double down the left field line to score Brendon Hayden and Erik Payne. With the Hokies offense heating up, Keselica managed to hold the Demon Deacons scoreless in the fourth and fifth innings to maintain the Hokies momentum. The Hokies took the lead for good in the top of the sixth with a combination of timely hitting and poor pitching and defense by Wake Forest. Jenco and Perez led off the inning with walks and Payne reached on an error which brought Jenco home. Hayden then walked to load the bases and Miguel Ceballos flew out to center to bring in Perez. Sciretta followed with the only Hokies hit of the inning to score Payne and then Mogg hit the second sacrifice fly of the inning to give the Hokies a four run lead. Keselica ended his up-and-down outing with a scoreless sixth to keep the Hokies lead at four.

The Hokies added two insurance runs in the seventh with two fielder's choices after loading the bases to leadoff the inning courtesy of two hits and an intentional walk to Hayden. Joey Sullivan replaced Keselica in the seventh and allowed one run off of two Demon Deacon extra base hits. Sullivan allowed an unearned run in the eighth as the Hokies committed their second error of the day. Ceballos finished the Hokie scoring in Game 1 in the ninth with an RBI double to center field to put the score at 12-7. Nursing a five run lead, Coach Mason opted to bring his closer in to the game in a non-save situation to make sure the Hokies would close out the game without any trouble. Luke Scherzer delivered in the bottom of the ninth with three strikeouts to put the Hokies at 1-0 in ACC play.

Saturday, VT @ Wake Forest, L: 14-5

Saturday's Winston-Salem slugfest continued into Game 2 as the Hokies dropped a game to Wake Forest to even out the series. Aaron McGarity started for the Hokies and was unable to replicate his outstanding performance from last weekend and took the loss after giving up 8 earned runs over 5 innings.

The Hokies struck first when Brendon Hayden smacked his fourth home run of the year over the right field fence to give the Hokies a 3-0 lead in the top of the first. Wake's Nate Mondou continued his impressive day with a three-run homer to right field to even up the game in the third. Alex Perez gave the Hokies the lead in the fourth with a single up the middle to score Joe Freiday Jr. who was making his third start of the year behind the plate. The Wake Forest offense answered immediately in the bottom of the fourth with another three run bomb to put them ahead by two.

McGarity allowed two singles to start the sixth inning which brought Coach Mason out of the dugout to call for Packy Naughton from the bullpen. Naughton was unable to strand the runners he inherited as he allowed a single and then a grand slam to Joey Rodriguez to bring the score to 10-4. Wake added four more runs in the bottom of the eighth off of Sean Kennedy to put the game out of reach. The Hokies managed to score once in the ninth off of an Erik Payne RBI single, but Brendon Hayden lined into a double play to bring the Saturday doubleheader to a close.

Sunday, VT @ Wake Forest, L: 12-4

The ball flew out of Gene Hooks Field for the rubber match on Sunday. The Hokies and Demon Deacons combined for eight home runs on the day. The Demon Deacon offense was too much to overcome as they pounded six home runs of their own on the way to a 2-1 series win over the visiting Hokies.

Jon Woodcock got the nod for the Hokies but only lasted four innings, giving up 4 earned runs on 4 hits and 5 walks. Brendon Hayden continued his hot start to the season with his fifth home run of the year to put the Hokies up 2-0 in the top of the first. To put the Hokies power numbers in perspective, Hayden's first inning blast tied last year's team home run total of 12 just 15 games into the season. Wake's Kevin Conway led off the bottom of the first with a solo home run to cut the Hokies lead in half. Woodcock pitched well until the fourth inning when the Demon Deacons chased him out of the game with two home runs to put them ahead 4-2. The Hokies inched within one run in the top of the sixth off of a Phil Sciretta pinch-hit RBI single, but that would be as close as the Hokies would come for the rest of the day.

Wake's offensive onslaught really caught fire in the sixth inning when they hit three more home runs to widen their lead and dampen the Hokies spirits. Wake wasn't done, though, as they tallied four more hits in the seventh to bring home two more runs, giving them an insurmountable 11-3 lead. The Demon Deacons piled on one more run in the eighth on an RBI single to center by Justin Yurchak. Continuing with the theme of the day, Tech's Sam Fragale hit a solo homer to right field in the top of the ninth to bring the score to 12-4. The Hokies went on to ground into a fielder's choice to bring the slugfest to a discouraging end.

Top Performers

It was certainly a disheartening week for HokieBall as they dropped their first ACC series of the year, but that doesn't mean there weren't positives to try to build on. Brendon Hayden slammed his fifth home run of the season and brought his RBI tally to a team-leading 15. NCAA stat leaders won't be updated until at least Monday, but Hayden's five home runs should raise him into the top 10 or 20 in the entire country. Erik Payne, despite his struggles in the field, continues to play a key role in the Hokies lineup with a .350 batting average and 13 RBI's.

Obviously, the pitching staff wasn't able to sustain its remarkable start to the season this week, but if the Hokies can start to find a healthy balance between solid pitching and the hitting that showed up in Winston-Salem this week, more success should come.

This Week (3/9 – 3/15)

The Hokies will travel to Williamsburg for two mid-week games against in-state foe William & Mary (6-4, 0-0) before welcoming UVA (12-1, 2-1) to Blacksburg for the biggest series of the HokieBall season. William & Mary opened up the year in Oxford and took a series loss to Ole Miss despite taking down the Rebels in Game 2. The Tribe followed up that series with a sweep of Northern Kentucky and was then swept by Campbell (who the Hokies split with).

Top-ranked (depending on which poll you look at) Virginia comes to town with one of the top pitching staffs in the country, but with an offense that has had its fair share of struggles. Nathan Kirby, the reigning ACC pitcher of the year and likely top-ten draft pick in the 2015 MLB Draft, will take the mound on Friday in Blacksburg. 757-product Connor Jones, who has arguably been more impressive than Kirby so far this season, and Brandon Waddell, who was UVA's Friday night starter in 2013, round out the dominant rotation for UVA. Northern Virginia product Josh Sborz, another top prospect in this year's draft, serves as the Cavaliers closer. Obviously, UVA will present the Hokies with a massive challenge. However, if the Hokies can scrape across a few runs early in the game and make the Cavaliers offense play from behind instead of manufacturing runs through their signature sacrifice bunt, a surprising series win against our top rival could be in the cards this weekend.

Tuesday, March 10- VT @ William & Mary, 7 P.M.
Wednesday, March 11- VT @ William & Mary, 4 P.M.
Friday, March 13- UVA @ VT, 5:30 P.M.
Saturday, March 14- UVA @ VT, 2 P.M.
Sunday, March 15- UVA @ VT, 1 P.M.