WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — In a league as balanced as the ACC, upsets and surprises aren’t hard to come by. But a nine-run first inning to overwhelm a top team in the nation before it even gets to swing? That’s pushing it.
But that’s exactly what the Hokies did against No. 16 Wake Forest on Friday, winning 13-2 in a game that saw them post a program record for first-frame runs against ACC competition.
That four-hit, six-walk and nine-run initial side was all Virginia Tech (18-8, 5-5 ACC) needed to take its second straight ranked win, a run-rule (eight innings) routing of the Demon Deacons (20-7, 7-3).
The cherry on top: Brett Renfrow threw a career-high 99 pitches to stifle one of the ACC’s most powerful lineups. With fiery offensive performances from third baseman Hudson Lutterman (3-for-5, home run) and left fielder Ben Watson (1-for-2, three RBI) among others, Tech’s win contained, to put it simply, a belligerent amount of cherries.
And it came as underdogs — at least they were to the 2,500-odd crowd at David F. Couch Ballpark, hoping, maybe expecting, to see a Demon Deacons thrashing amidst the cozy bloom of early spring. Hokies head coach John Szefc rebuked the notion.
“Our guys are well prepared, and I was trying to explain all week, our guys are good,” he said, stiffening his countenance and putting emphasis on that final word. “We have good players, [Wake Forest] has good players. I think we have better players. After [Louisville] I keep saying it, and people don’t believe it because we don’t have ‘Florida State’ across our chest or whatever, but I don’t really care.”
That statement pervaded in the first inning, which began as Wake Forest starter Logan Lunceford — who entered the game as the ACC’s strikeout leader but ended with none — issued three walks to his first three batters.
His first walk, Jared Davis, came in off a wild pitch before cleanup hitter David McCann snuck a right-side single to take a brisk 3-0 lead. Courtesy of hits by Henry Cooke, Lutterman, Watson and no shortage of extra walks and passed balls, the score was 9-0 by the inning’s end. Besides Garrett Michel, Tech’s entire lineup crossed home before the third out.
Lunceford was pulled after yielding four earned runs — three more came after his removal — in a third of an inning.
The Hokies took advantage of more Wake Forest blunders in the eighth to trigger the run-rule, but Lutterman crushed his second career homer for his team’s 11th run two innings before that. The freshman earned a starting role with the recent benching of third baseman David Lewis and has more than taken advantage, hitting .382 this season — the highest of anyone in the lineup besides Sam Tackett.
“I was just waiting for my opportunity, and I got it,” Lutterman said. “I’m just rolling with it. It’s fun playing baseball, and I get I’m a freshman, so I’m just doing my best. Just playing hard. Free and fun.”
Both Lutterman and Szefc believed Renfrow — who struck out five and allowed two earned runs over six innings — was just as much a catalyst for Friday’s win as the offense. Reliever Cameron LeJeune (two hits, Ks and innings pitched) matched Renfrow’s fervor in the last two innings.
“You give a guy like Renfrow some room to breathe, in a hard [ballpark to pitch in], that’s such a well-pitched game between Renfrow and Cam in this park,” Szefc said, referring to Wake Forest’s famously shallow right- and left-field walls. “Regardless of how the rest of the series goes, that’s such a well-pitched game by those guys.”
With 36 minutes separating Lunceford’s first pitch and Renfrow’s — effectively nullifying his warm up, according to Szefc — the sophomore’s outing got off to an unsteady start.
Renfrow walked two of his first four batters, then surrendered a Kade Lewis single to give the Demon Deacons their only run until the fifth inning. He retired the next eight batters, contributing to a lull — but not complete halt — in scoring for both teams from the second to seventh innings.
Faced with a dramatic deficit, Wake Forest sent a slew of developing pitchers who wouldn’t see Friday play otherwise. They fared well, holding Tech to just two runs across the aforementioned lull, though offensive complacence with such a lead is far from unthinkable.
However, because of that, neither team burned through any substantial part of their bullpen. The Hokies, who only used LeJeune, are arguably worse off for the games beyond — though Szefc noted that sending deeper arms would’ve been too risky against Wake Forest’s offense.
“You’re trying to win a game on the road,” he said. “So you’re not gonna mess with it, not in this park, because things can just steamroll at this place real fast. So having been here many times, you’ve got to win a game here when you can win a game, not screw around.”
With Friday’s win, Tech has secured three of its last four ACC and ranked games — perhaps a testament to the conference’s acclaimed parity, or an indication that the team is closer to what Szefc and Lutterman believe it is than what the world takes it to be.
“Hey, we’re good, too,” Lutterman said, another rejector of Tech’s underdog status. “We’ve shown it a couple of times. As the season progresses, we’re getting better at finding what we need to do when we need to do it. We’re here to play.”
The Hokies return to David F. Couch Ballpark on Saturday, hoping to take their second ACC and ranked series in as many weeks. First pitch will come at 4 p.m. ET on ACC Network Extra.
Box Score: Virginia Tech 13, No. 16 Wake Forest 2 (8 innings)