Virginia Tech’s 9-6 loss to No. 12 North Carolina on Friday was like much the rest of its now four-game ACC losing streak — simply not enough to contend with the conference’s elite.
“If we’re gonna play with [elite teams], you can’t give up nine runs on Friday night,” Hokies coach John Szefc said. “[FSU and North Carolina] — just really good teams, you’ve gotta play better. … If you’re gonna be really good, your best players have to play their best, and that wasn’t the case with us tonight.”
Szefc may have had Hokies (24-14, 9-10 ACC) starter Brett Renfrow in mind, who struck out eight Tar Heels (30-8, 12-7) batters but surrendered five earned runs — his season-high. The relievers behind him allowed four more earned runs, and that, combined with spells of head-scratching defense, gave North Carolina a slew of scoring opportunities.
On the other side, home runs by Sam Tackett, Hudson Lutterman and David McCann facilitated Tech’s best offensive showing — but not a particularly great one — since plating 11 runs against Notre Dame on April 6. Eight of 10 Hokies players with an at-bat recorded a hit on Friday, and half of their scoring output came against North Carolina starter Jake Knapp, the ACC’s ERA leader coming into Blacksburg.
The bats were better, no doubt. But that didn’t make them good enough.
“We did pretty good, coming out on a Friday night and putting up six runs on 10 hits on two of the better arms in the ACC,” Tackett said. “But we didn’t get the big hit when we needed it. … Down the stretch. It probably could’ve been a little bit better.”
They needed the big hit — a string of them, more realistically — at some point in the seven through ninth innings, just after Lutterman’s three-run blast in the sixth had set them up for a come-from-behind opportunity.
Instead, the Tar Heels scored four runs in the last three innings while the Hokies managed just two: McCann’s homer in the ninth and a Clay Grady RBI single that — after reviewing and overturning the call of out at first — plated Anderson French in the eighth. But in the subsequent at-bat, Jared Davis (0-for-5) stranded two runners with a groundout.
McCann’s blast — his first extra base hit in ACC play — kept Tech breathing, but Ben Watson (1-for-5) flied out, while Tackett (2-for-5) and Henry Cooke (0-for-4) struck out to end the last inning in four batters.
Tech finished 5-for-14 with runners on base and 2-for-8 with runners in scoring position, similar to North Carolina’s 5-for-18 and 4-for-12 marks. The separator? Tar Heels batters were 5-for-9 in the leadoff spot, and three of those five ended up scoring. Tech was just 1-for-9 — Tackett smacked a leadoff double in the sixth, which came around courtesy of Lutterman’s first-career homer at English Field.
“It’s probably us not being locked in at the beginning of the innings,” Tackett said of the Hokies’ leadoff struggles. “That’s when pitchers come out, and they might be pitching a little differently than they were the previous inning or innings. [To improve], we just need to be able to see more pitches in those first at-bats, and get the leadoff guy on.”
North Carolina’s first batter of the game, speedster Kane Kepley (2-for-4), walked and came around off Luke Stevenson’s sacrifice fly to give the Tar Heels a 1-0 lead across the first two-and-a-half innings of the game. In the bottom of the third, Tackett cracked his first home run since March 22 against Louisville 406 feet over the left-field wall.
It was encouraging for Tackett, who was batting 1-for-13 coming in. But the excitement was short lived as Stevenson homered off the second pitch of the following side. Renfrow allowed another RBI hit in the fifth — plating a runner who doubled because Watson lost an incoming ball in left field — and then a two-run Hunter Stokely shot the next frame.
Lutterman, who was the first batter for Tar Heels reliever Walker McDuffie in the next side, made it 5-4, but again, the visitors quickly responded. Tech reliever Preston Crowl started the seventh inning, relieving Luke Craytor, who threw just two pitches to close the previous frame.
Crowl retired his first batter but his second, Kepley, tripled off the first pitch of his at-bat. He came around when Cam Pittman, charging in from center field, attempted to play a ball that should’ve been Davis’ at second base. Pittman wasn’t in time, to say the least, so it went down as an RBI single for Jackson Van De Brake.
Later that inning, Lutterman hesitated in getting in front of what became a Gavin Gallaher RBI knock through the left side. He looked to be giving Grady a chance at playing the ball from shortstop, but he was nowhere close, even after diving.
“I mean, they couldn’t catch a pop up,” Szefc said of his defense, which is hobbled by injuries. “I wouldn’t say [they’ve been] great, but just okay.”
The Tar Heels scored two more runs in the ninth, both walk-ins courtesy of the back of Tech’s bullpen — Luke Jackman, Marcel Kulik and Brendan Cowen — which was being utilized despite a manageable two-run deficit to begin the ninth.
“You’re trying to get through the game and not blow up your whole bullpen for the weekend,” Szefc said. “So you try to get a lot of different guys out there and give them some run.”
Key relief arms Crowl (22 pitches), Cameron LeJeune (four) and Brendan Yagesh (12) tossed on Friday, but not at a clip that would render them unusable for the rest of the series.
They’re unlikely to go in Saturday’s Game 2, though, which may determine the series. The first pitch of that contest will come at 3 p.m. ET on ACC Network Extra.
Box Score: No. 12 North Carolina 9, Virginia Tech 6