Virginia Tech has been behind in two of its four games this season. The first deficit came in a loss to Bucknell last Friday while the other happened early in the Hokies’ win against East Tennessee State on a chilly Tuesday afternoon at English Field.
Both games ended 8-6 and were oddly similar in many ways — just not in their endings.
Each featured alarming starts by graduate student Grant Manning that put Tech (3-1) in a hole, followed by impressive relief efforts to allow the offense to respond, but not-so-solid relieving gave those leads right back.
Where did those games differ? On Friday, Tech pitchers faltered in threatening situations, and the offense recorded just two hits in the game’s final three innings. Against the Buccaneers (3-1), reliever Preston Crowl occasionally bent but scoffed at the notion that a baserunner would touch home plate. The bats behind him took advantage, scoring three runs during Crowl’s outing that held up for the win.
Crowl stranded three runners in scoring position across the sixth and seventh innings — frames in which the Hokies were down one and tied — en route to his first career win.
“Those points swing the game,” Hokies head coach John Szefc said, motioning towards Crowl. “One way or another, he gets those outs, that’s a huge part of the game. When they have the tying run on, that’s when you’ve got to rely on your best arms. And that’s exactly how it went there.”
“Nothing really changes,” Crowl said of his approach in high-leverage situations. “Stick to the same approach. Still trying to get guys out. A couple unlucky times, like a hit [to put the tying run on first in the seventh inning]. But there’s nothing you can do about that. Always take the same approach. Trust your stuff.”
Catcher David McCann and right fielder Sam Tackett continued their respective tears, each hitting 2-for-3 against the Buccaneers, and McCann served as Tech’s winning run in the seventh inning. He cracked a leadoff double deep into the left-field track, then advanced to the final two bases off a pair of passed balls that came during Tackett’s at-bat. Garrett Michel, who was walked a base behind McCann, scored after Cam Pittman reached on a fielder’s choice knock towards first base.
It was the final push that didn’t come in Game 2 of last Friday’s doubleheader — the arbiter of wins and losses.
“We had some tough at-bats when we needed to,” Szefc said. “McCann had a really good at-bat. He gets a two-strike double. There was a lot of little things in that game that kind of went on there, like we had some guys really throw well in their first outing.”
One of them was Mount St. Mary’s transfer Brendan Yagesh in his Tech debut, who followed up Manning’s three earned runs in the first inning with two scoreless frames. Like Crowl, he opened a two-inning door for his offense. When he took the mound at the start of the second frame, Tech was down 3-0. By the end of the third, it led 5-3.
“He’s really cool. He’s one of the more calm guys on our team,” Crowl said of Yagesh. “It’s interesting how he works. Speaking in personality, everyone’s different. He’s one of the more calm guys, and I relate to that a lot.”
Their similarities extended to the box score. Both allowed just two hits in as many innings, with Crowl picking up two strikeouts to Yagesh’s one. Crowl was credited with the win — he was the Hokies’ pitcher during their go-ahead run — but both threw shutout pitching that allowed for game-deciding offensive surges.
After using five arms — including Mathieu Curtis, who allowed two home runs in the fourth before his quick removal — by the seventh inning, Tech needed a lesser-known pitcher to step up, and Lafayette transfer Luke Craytor did exactly that in the final two frames.
With one out in the eighth inning, the junior hit ETSU catcher JD Yakubinis in the helmet but got out of the jam two batters later without any pushback. In the ninth, he allowed a double and a two-out single to put runners on the corners. A nine-pitch battle with Buccaneers center fielder Jamie Palmese maxed the anxiety but ended in a strikeout — a final at-bat indicative of a bend-don’t-break game for Tech’s bullpen.
“I mean, just electric, but that’s Luke Craytor,” Crowl said of the clutch strikeout. “Coming, throwing hard, good sweeper, good slider. That’s what you expect from him. He’s really electric.”
The Hokies return to English Field for a weekend series against UNC Greensboro (3-1) beginning Friday at 4 p.m. ET (ACC Network Extra). The Spartans are coming off a 4-0 win against No. 13 Wake Forest.
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