Virginia Tech Baseball: Hokies Falter in Clemson Series

After a thrilling sweep of previously top-ranked Virginia last week, the Hokies (12-12, 5-4) dropped two games to Clemson before salvaging a game 3 victory on Sunday. The Hokies also earned their first midweek win of the season with a victory over Radford on Wednesday.

Tuesday, Liberty @ VT: L, 12-5

The Hokies suffered a disappointing setback on Tuesday as they fell to the Liberty Flames in a midweek clash. Freshman Joey Sullivan took the mound for the Hokies and took the loss after allowing 4 runs in just two innings of work.

Liberty took an early lead in the top of the second with four runs off of five hits and a key Hokie error. The Flames tacked on three more runs in the middle innings which gave them a commanding 7-0 lead. In the sixth, Phil Sciretta put the Hokies on the board with a single to center field to score Erik Payne. The Hokies added one more run in the eighth inning, but Sean Keselica struck out with two men on base to end the threat.

Liberty piled on five more runs in the ninth with an RBI single from Alex Close followed by a Becker Sankey grand slam. The Hokies managed to scrape across three runs in the bottom half of the inning, but a ten run deficit was just too much to overcome as the Hokies fell 12-5.

Wednesday, Radford @ VT: W, 18-8

After taking their fair share of lumps in midweek games prior to Wednesday, the Hokies finally earned their first midweek victory of the season with a decisive 18-8 win over Radford.

With usual second baseman Alex Perez starting on the mound, redshirt freshman Sam Fragale made his first career start as a Hokie. Fragale made the most of his opportunity as he tallied four hits, one of which was a bases clearing triple that put an exclamation point on the Hokies 9-run bottom of the fourth. While some may have been shocked with Fragale's breakout performance, Coach Mason was far from surprised.

"There isn't anyone in our program that works harder than Sam," said Mason. "We have a parking spot for the worker of the month and that's Sam's parking spot, and I'd be surprised if anyone else ever parked their again."

As has seemingly become the norm in midweek games, the first few innings were unkind to Tech. Radford struck first in the top of the second with a two-run single to right field, followed by a grand slam that barely snuck over the left field fence. Quickly down 6-0, the Hokies could have packed it in for the evening and turned their attention to Clemson. However, with the powerful Hokies lineup still having eight opportunities to claw back into the game, there was no sign of quit in the home dugout.

"We can hit," said Fragale. "So I think we knew going down that all we had to do was keep rolling, doing what we know how to do."

The Hokies comeback began immediately with three runs in the bottom of the second that cut the Highlander lead in half. Brendon Hayden led off the inning with his team-leading sixth home run of the year to put the Hokies on the board. After two Hokie singles, Rahiem Cooper lofted a sacrifice fly to center field to score Phil Sciretta. Andrew Mogg then brought in the the third run of the inning with a double down the left field line to pull the Hokies within three.

After a rough start, Alex Perez settled down and was able to pitch into the fourth inning until he was replaced by Luis Collazo. Collazo, who went on earn his first career win, held the Highlanders scoreless to set the table for the 9-run bottom half of the inning.

By the time the Highlanders finally managed to record three outs in the fourth, the Hokies had sent 14 batters to the plate to face 3 different Radford pitchers. The 8-hit, 9-run inning was highlighted by a bases-clearing triple that Fragale smoked deep into the right field corner to give the Hokies a 10-6 lead. After two more Hokie RBI's, Tech had put up a shocking 12 unanswered runs.

Radford scored once in the top of the sixth, but 6 more Hokie runs in the seventh and eighth innings put the game out of reach for the Highlanders.

Looking to get a little work in before the upcoming Clemson series, closer Luke Scherzer came on to pitch the ninth inning. Despite giving up a run, Scherzer easily finished out the game for the Hokies.

Even though midweek games pit the Hokies against non-conference opponents, Coach Mason couldn't understate their importance.

"It's really important, these midweek wins are vital if we want to keep an at-large bid hope alive," said Mason. "For that reason, it's huge...and it never hurts to win a baseball game."

Friday, Clemson @ VT: L, 4-0 (10)

Hokies ace Sean Keselica and Clemson top arm Matthew Crownover locked into a classic pitcher's duel on Friday night at English Field. After trading zeros throughout the evening, Clemson finally mustered up some offense in the tenth inning off of the Hokies bullpen and squeaked out a 4-0 victory.

Keselica continued his dominant season with eight scoreless innings. Unfortunately, Crownover was just as good for the Tigers.

The Hokies threatened in the bottom of the third off of two singles from Ricky Surum and Saige Jenco, but two fly outs stranded them at first and second. Clemson managed a pair of singles in the fourth, but a Weston Wilson groundout to short kept the Tigers off the scoreboard. Keselica encountered further trouble in the fifth, but was able to get Steven Duggar to fly out to center with two runners in scoring position to get out of the jam.

Both teams left runners on base in the seventh inning as each pitcher neared the 100 pitch mark. Neither lefty seemed to tire, though, as they both went three-up, three-down in the eighth inning to send the game to the ninth scoreless.

With Keselica at 111 pitches, Coach Mason opted to bring in closer Luke Scherzer for the ninth. Scherzer worked a quiet ninth to give the Hokies an opportunity to walk off with a victory in the bottom half of the inning. Crownover started the inning for the Tigers and was greeted by an Alex Perez double to the left center gap. Clemson appealed that Perez had missed first base, and to the chagrin of the Hokies dugout, first base umpire David Brown emphatically called Perez out. Neither Perez nor Coach Mason were willing to comment on the controversial play after the game, and even the ESPN3 replay of the play was inconclusive.

With Crownover now at 125 pitches, Drew Moyer was brought into the game for the Tigers. Moyer intentionally walked Hokies slugger Brendon Hayden but got the other two Hokies he faced to strike out swinging.

As the game moved into the tenth, the Hokies bullpen lost all ability to find the strike zone. After Scherzer and Packy Naughton walked the bases loaded, Clemson's Chris Okey blasted the first pitch he saw well into the night to give the Tigers a 4-0 lead. The Hokies put two runners in scoring position in the bottom of the tenth, but Miguel Ceballos grounded out to short to end game 1.

After the game, the Hokies were justifiably frustrated with how they let such a great performance from Keselica turn into a loss.

"Sean threw his heart out," said Perez. "We just couldn't get a run early. We had a bunch of opportunities."

Coach Mason, looking forward to Saturday and Sunday, was hopeful that his team could battle back from a tough loss.

"Him (Crownover) and Sean went pitch for pitch tonight, it was an awesome game," Mason said. That's Friday night ACC baseball. It's a shame one of them had to lose. We'll be ready to go tomorrow."

Saturday, Clemson @ VT: L, 15-8

After Friday was controlled by the pitchers, game 2 at English Field turned into a hitting parade for both teams. Clemson tallied 21 hits, eight of which were of the extra base variety, on their way to a 15-8 victory. With the win, Clemson earned their first ACC series win of the season.

Aaron McGarity started for the Hokies and was unable to work down in the zone effectively. While on some days you can get away with some early inning struggles, Clemson made McGarity pay early and often.

"He just missed everything up in the zone. Everything, every pitch seemed to be up," said Coach Mason. "It played well to their offense."

McGarity's day came to an end in the third inning with the Hokies already down 6-2. Sean Keselica, playing first base after tossing a gem on Friday, cut the Tigers lead to three in the bottom of the third with an RBI single to right. Clemson took complete control of the game in the fourth with six runs off of five hits. Chase Pinder, the younger brother of former Hokies star Chad, put his mark on the inning with a two-run homer to left to give Clemson a 12-3 lead.

Alex Perez, who went 4-4 with a walk on the day, smashed a triple into the left center gap to score Saige Jenco in the bottom of the fourth. The Tigers offense extended their lead in the sixth with five more hits that put the score at 15-4. The Hokies offense refused to quit, but the deficit was just too much to overcome as the Hokies fell to the Tigers 15-8.

With Jon Woodcock scheduled to take the mound for the Hokies in game 3, his mindset was clear for Sunday.

"That's where Aaron got hurt today...his mistakes were up and they took advantage of it," said Woodcock. "My focus tomorrow will be getting ahead with strike 1 and staying at the knees the whole game."

Sunday, Clemson @ VT: W, 4-3 (12)

For the second time in just three days, Virginia Tech and Clemson needed extra innings to determine a victor. Unlike Friday night, the Hokies found a way to escape with a win with a twelve-inning, 4-3 walk-off victory over Clemson.

Jon Woodcock got the ball for the Hokies and despite a tough start to the game, worked seven solid innings without allowing an earned run. The Hokie defense betrayed Woodcock in the top of the first with two key errors from shortstop Ricky Surum. Clemson managed to put up three unearned runs off of just two hits because of the lackluster defense. Unhappy with his sophomore shortstop's start to the afternoon, Coach Mason replaced Surum with Ryan Tufts in the top of the second.

Saige Jenco led off the bottom of the first with a triple and then came home on a Kyle Wernicki ground out to second to cut the Tiger lead to two. The Hokies pulled within one in the bottom of the third after an Alex Perez double and an RBI single from Erik Payne.

Both offenses had multiple opportunities to scrape across runs in the middle innings, but Woodcock and Clemson starter Zack Erwin swapped zeros until the bottom of the eighth. Clemson's bullpen struggled to find the zone in the eighth and a single and two walks loaded the bases with Hokies. With the bases full, Clemson's Clate Schmidt fired a wild pitch to Phil Sciretta which let Erik Payne scamper home to tie the game at three. Nothing was doing for either offense in the ninth as the game moved into extras.

The bullpen trio of Luke Scherzer, Packy Naughton, and Chris Monaco managed to hold the Tigers scoreless over the game's final five innings. Clemson nearly took the lead several times with runners in scoring position, but clutch pitching from Monaco and solid defense kept the game knotted at 3.

The Hokies finally broke through in the twelfth inning after two singles and an intentional walk to Brendon Hayden loaded the bases with just one out. Rahiem Cooper stepped to the plate with the simple goal of getting the baseball to the outfield. Cooper's plan didn't quite succeed as Tiger second baseman Chase Pinder dove to stop a scorching one-hopper to the right side. Pinder quickly got to his feet and threw home, but Kyle Wernicki easily beat the throw to give the Hokies a walk-off victory.

"Off the bat, I thought it was through, but he made a pretty good play," Cooper said. "But Wernicki got a good jump at third and he scored the winning run."

The win gives the squad a morale boost headed into next week as they were able to avoid a home sweep with an exciting walk-off victory.

"I think it's huge because there's a big difference between 5-4 and 4-5," said Coach Mason. "We gave one away on Friday night but to come back in the same week and win a very similar type game, it shows the maturity of our team."

This Week (3/23 - 3/29)

The Hokies ten-game homestand will come to an end this week with two midweek games against Norfolk State (6-9, 3-3) and East Tennessee State (11-10, 0-3). Look for Kit Scheetz, who made his first appearance since February 23rd this past weekend after battling mono, to start one of the two midweek games. The Hokies will then travel to Tallahassee to take on eleventh-ranked Florida State (19-6, 7-2) in a 3 game series. The Seminoles are coming off of a convincing 2-1 series win over UVA in Charlottesville this past weekend. If the Hokies want to have a chance to steal a victory or two from Mike Martin's Seminoles, they will need another great start from Sean Keselica (who now sports a 1.58 ERA) and better performances from the rest of the pitching staff.