Virginia Tech baseball dropped a cruel doubleheader in Pittsburgh on Sunday, spanning two games, nine hours and two soul-crushing, season-defining losses.
Pitt dealt the Hokies (27-21, 11-16 ACC) a quick 5-3 defeat in Game 1 — which was shortened due to a new ACC rule determining that the first game of Sunday doubleheaders are seven innings — to win its first conference series of the season and whisk away Tech’s hope of taking the must-win weekend.
The second leg of the doubleheader was a just-as brutal blow in which the Hokies left their longest game in ACC-era program history (5:45) with their season in turmoil, despite putting up an admirable fight — a 14-13 defeat in extras. The problem is the season is far past the point of admirable fights.
Even if the Hokies battled back from two separate four-run deficits to push the game to 13 grueling innings, going up by two runs twice in the last four frames, the result was the same. Tech needed to win at least once on Sunday to have a shot at the NCAA Tournament, more likely twice. But it didn’t.
The Panthers (24-21, 9-15) swept a conference opponent for the first time all year — and so another late-season collapse has been all but cemented in Blacksburg. If a chance for Tech to play in a regional remains, it lies within a phenomenal ACC Tournament run. That was determined a few minutes before the ninth hour of baseball on Sunday.
Clay Grady (3-for-6) and Sam Tackett (2-for-7) singled around a Ben Watson (3-for-6) double — whose hitting streak reached 14 after the two games — to go up 13-11 in the 13th inning. It was familiar territory. Watson knocked a two-RBI double to go up as many runs in the ninth, but reliever Preston Crowl surrendered a two-run homer in the bottom side to blow it.
Watson’s efforts were again wasted in the final inning. Reliever Luke Craytor struck out the side in the 12th, so he walked back out the next inning. He seemed to get a quick out on Sebastian Pisacreta, Pitt’s leadoff batter, but first baseman Anderson French mishandled a chopper to allow the runner to reach first. Keenan Burroughs pinch-ran for Pisacreta and stole second before coming around off David Pedanou’s infield single. He stole second, too, so another single by Ryan Dulin tied the game at 13.
A two-run lead was squandered again, but another chance — the 14th inning — was still in reach, especially with Luke Cantwell’s three-pitch strikeout to put two outs on and hold the runner at first. However, the heart of Pitt’s lineup, Ryan Zuckerman (3-for-7) and AJ Nessler (5-for-7), knocked consecutive singles to plate Dulin and cause heartbreak for the Hokies.
A late collapse spoiling an optimistic span of baseball — a motif that appears all too often for Tech. But the fact remains, it battled back from an early 4-0 hole in the first.
Freshman pitcher Logan Eisenreich found one out in the first before surrendering a walk, single, double and a sac-fly RBI knock to the Panthers. Grant Manning took over with runners on second and third, striking out the remainder of the side only after Nessler belted a three-run homer to pound Tech early.
In the second, the Hokies loaded the bases with two outs, courtesy of three free bases, including two hit by pitches, which they had five of by the end of the game. Pittman walked in a run to dig into the deficit slightly, but the visitors managed nothing beyond that until the third.
With one out, David McCann and Watson — who walked before coming around — piled up free bases as Dulin mishandled McCann’s knock at second to make it 4-2.
The difference was quickly four again when Manning issued a leadoff walk and Cantwell homered in the bottom side. To that point, at least one run was scored every inning. That continued through the rest of regulation.
In the fourth and fifth, it was solo homers by Pittman, Tackett and Pitt’s Jake Kendro to make it 7-5 until Cantwell slapped an RBI single in the sixth to put his team up three. McCann belted Tech’s third homer in four innings next frame, coupling with an earlier Watson base hit to bring the Hokies within one (8-7) for the first time all game.
That held until Cameron LeJeune, who was amid a steady five-strikeout outing over 2 ⅔ innings, ended his day by allowing an RBI knock to Julian Irizarry. Jacob Exum relieved the McNeese State transfer, grabbing consecutive outs to dispel a threat of runners on the corners and set the table for a pivotal eighth inning.
Pittman crept Tech’s fifth homer and his second of the game just above the right-field wall to give rise to a manageable 9-8 game. Grady’s double, soon to be walked in with Cooke’s free base on a hit by pitch, finally pulled the Hokies even with the Panthers at nine. They got over that hump with Watson’s RBI double next inning, too. They just weren’t over it for long despite only needing three outs to close the door on Pitt.
Brendan Yagesh gave up a single before Crowl was homered off by Jackson Cooke, allowing an even score and extra innings. Neither team scored in the first two bonus frames, with the Panthers stranding five runs — Chase Swift tossed four strikeouts between Crowl and Craytor — while the Hokies stranded two.
In one final act of dependability, Watson broke the scoreless streak in the 13th with his fifth hit of the doubleheader: A double to bring Grady home. Tackett brought his fellow graduate student around with a single to center field, making it 13-11. But yet again, the two-run cushion evaporated in the following side.
Close to six exhausting hours of baseball ended in heartbreak. It was nearly nine with the previous game, which was almost as detrimental a result.
Tech struck first in Game 1 after two steady innings by starter Jake Marciano, with Watson — yes, again, Watson — and Jared Davis putting balls in play to score twice in the third. Pitt responded and then some the following side, with Dulin, Cantwell and Jayden Melendez doing the same to go up 3-2.
The Panthers scored again next inning just after Marciano surrendered an Irizarry single, his sixth hit allowed and soon to be his fourth earned run.
Reliever Mathieu Curtis took over for Marciano and struck out Kendro before being hit off by Pedanou to plate Irizarry. Curtis (two hits, four Ks over 2 ⅔ innings) pitched well in the fourth-through-sixth innings — the last ones due to the shortened game — giving up no earned runs even though Burroughs scored in the final frame. Davis took the blame for that since he errored at second to let Pisacreta reach base. Burroughs, his pinch-runner, was later brought home by a timely Dulin swing to make it 5-3.
All the while, Tech’s situational offense struggled mightily. It stranded at least one runner in scoring position in every inning except the first and seventh, when it went down in 1-2-3 fashion.
The Hokies’ best opportunity arose in the fifth when, trailing 4-2, Tackett (singled) and Watson (doubled) hit to set up a Cooke sacrifice fly, pulling them within one with a chance for more. Davis sped to first base for an infield single, putting two on for McCann with just one out. Yet, he grounded into a double play.
French, the tying run after his one-out walk, made it to second base with two outs in the sixth. Pittman grounded out to the pitcher — a ball that looked identical to McCann’s. And though Watson, and to a lesser degree Tackett and Cooke, had been reliable all day, they went down in order in the seventh, putting them 45 minutes away from a second chance. One in which they fought, but lost all the same.
The Hokies ventured to Pittsburgh as one of the last four teams projected into the NCAA Tournament, per D1Baseball, and they left likely to be far away from it. There’s still more baseball to be played, though, with Virginia Tech heading to Lynchburg for a rematch against Liberty on Wednesday (6 p.m. ET, no TV broadcast) before a two-game series against Mercer back at English Field this weekend.
Game 1 Box Score: Pitt 5, Virginia Tech 3
Game 2 Box Score: Pitt 14, Virginia Tech 13 (13 innings)