A day after freshman pitcher Jake Marciano stumped the Spartans in the Hokies’ series-tying 6-2 win, Virginia Tech turned to another rookie arm: Logan Eisenreich.
The righty from Paul VI commanded the bump in his second straight rubber match start, collecting eight strikeouts and allowing three hits across 4 ⅔ innings to sow the seeds of Tech’s 8-3 win at home over UNC Greensboro on Monday. The offense thrived, racking up 16 hits — seven of which went for extra bases.
“Logan gave us that good start to kind of get it going,” Virginia Tech head coach John Szefc said. “Any time you’re gonna come and win a third game of a series, you need to get off to a good start. He did that.”
Monday marked the second straight series-claiming Game 3 win for the Hokies (5-2). It wasn’t quite as decisive as their 27-1 victory against Bucknell last weekend, but like that contest, Eisenreich and the offense rose to the occasion.
They did so after a second-inning falter by Eisenreich — his lone blight — that put two runs aboard for UNCG (4-3) and made it 2-1 in the visitor’s favor.
He walked the first two batters of the frame — Luke Jenkins and Jacob Budzik — who advanced twice after Boone Herman’s sacrifice bunt and Jeremy Wolf’s fly out of the same nature, the latter of which scored Jenkins and tied the game at one. A sacrifice fly from David McCann scored Jared Davis in the first and gave Tech the first lead. Then Eisenreich threw a wild pitch that plated the second of his walks (Budzik).
He got out of the inning with his third strikeout of the contest, but not without damage. Eisenreich wasn’t discouraged, though, and it certainly helped that his team “won the inning,” as he put it.
Tech notched four straight hits in the bottom of the second, starting with a leadoff triple from Treyson Hughes. David Lewis followed with an RBI single, then Garrett Michel and Jackson Cherry doubled to put three runs aboard in just 10 pitches.
Eisenreich’s offense had his back. With that in mind, he retired the Spartans in order in the third, and in four the next inning, recording Ks on all but one of those outs.
“It happens,” Eisenreich said of his second-inning misstep. “It’s nothing to get too worked up about. You’ve got a good offense and defense. I mean, when you score three runs to win the inning, it helps you out big time. Just go back out there and do what you can do.”
“Everything [was working], but it was a lot of heavy slider, working the fastball in with it. Just knew I had a good defense behind me, and just tried to let [UNCG] hit it every time.”
Eisenreich retired the first two Spartans in the fifth, but after issuing a walk, reliever Brendan Yagesh took over with the goal of getting a single out before Grant Manning entered next inning. Parker Wight flied out in two pitches, then a fiery Tech offense returned to bat.
McCann, who leads the Hokies in early-season batting with a .480 average, launched UNCG pitcher Grant Aycock’s second pitch of the inning 357 feet over the left-field wall and onto the top of Tech’s pitching lab. Three batters later, Lewis’ single kickstarted a short two-out rally that saw him get home as a Michel RBI.
In the sixth inning, Clay Grady hit a one-out double to give Davis an RBI opportunity. And as the Florida SouthWestern transfer said after the game, “Whenever someone gets a hit, everyone wants to get a hit. I think it’s contagious.”
The Orlando, Fla., native singled to score Grady for Tech’s eighth and final run to cap off a 4-for-5 day. Across the series, he’s 8-for-13 with two RBI and as many stolen bases. The junior is batting .478 in six starts this year and impressed in the leadoff spot after being moved there Sunday.
“Jared is tough,” Szefc said. “He doesn't have to hit a ball on the screws to get a base hit out of it. If he hits a chopper over the mound, he’s gonna [get to first]. I’ve played against guys like that, and you don’t want that guy putting balls in play. When the ball’s on the ground, it’s on. The panic begins. In my years at [Louisiana-Lafayette] as an assistant, we had a couple guys like that, and he’s a better hitter than all those guys.”
Every Hokies starter posted a hit in the win besides Sam Tackett, who still boasts four home runs and a .455 average this year. Hughes (2-for-5), Lewis (2-for-4), Michel (2-for-3), Grady (2-for-3) and Cherry (2-for-2) each had multiple knocks.
Manning relieved Eisenreich to near perfection in the sixth after beginning his season with two starts of three or more earned runs across just 2 ⅔ innings. He was credited with the win in his Monday bounce back, firing off five strikeouts and walking a single batter with just one earned run in three innings.
The Hokies will play one more game in Blacksburg vs. James Madison on Wednesday (3 p.m. ET) before heading to Greenville, North Carolina, for the Keith LeClair Classic, where they’ll face Indiana State, Kent State and East Carolina.
The Dukes (4-3) were swept by No. 9 Florida State to start their season, but have since rebounded with four straight wins, beating Radford and then Canisius in a series last weekend.
Box Score: Virginia Tech 8, UNC Greensboro 3