After falling short of hosting a regional, Virginia Tech softball traveled to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to start its NCAA Tournament run on Friday.
The Hokies (41-11) will face Belmont on Friday at 3:30 p.m. on ESPN+. If they win, they will face the winner of No. 15 Alabama vs. Jackson State on Saturday at noon. A loss would put them in the elimination bracket on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
“We had an extra day of practice on Monday, and we’ve really been going as hard as we can at practice trying to prepare for the weekend,” Virginia Tech pitcher Emma Lemley said on a media call Thursday. “The competition from here on out is steep. These are the best teams in the country.”
Belmont (40-14) won the Missouri Valley Conference championship with tournament wins over Bradley, Northern Iowa and Southern Illinois. The Bruins boast Maya Johnson in the circle, who leads the country in strikeouts with 355 — 73 more than anyone else. Johnson is fifth in the country with a 1.24 earned run average across 197 innings pitched.
“We know she throws a good riseball,” Hokies catcher Zoe Yaeger said. “[We will be] trying to hit hard line drives — basically what we’ve been doing all year. Nothing changes. We’ve faced riseballs all year, good riseballs, so just doing what we’ve been doing all year.”
Johnson and Hokies center fielder Bre Peck played travel softball together, matching up former teammates who turned into the nation’s strikeout champion and Virginia Tech’s all-time home run leader.
The Bruins play small ball. Though they have four hitters with batting averages over .300, their home run leader, Brenna Blume, has just six bombs. For contrast, Virginia Tech right fielder Cori McMillan has more home runs this season (30) than the entire Belmont team combined (24).
Virginia Tech and Belmont have played once before — a 13-1 Hokies win on Feb. 10, 2024. During that game, Peck and first baseman Emily LeGette homered while pitcher Emma Mazzarone surrendered just two hits and one run across five innings.
“We need to give Belmont 100 percent of what we have before we can worry about Alabama,” Yaeger said. “Every game is gonna be the same. They’re gonna get the same Virginia Tech softball as Alabama would on Saturday.”
Alabama is hosting a regional for the 20th consecutive season as part of 26 straight postseason appearances. It finished tied for ninth in the conference standings with a 12-12 SEC record. The Crimson Tide (37-21) qualified for the Women’s College World Series a year ago as the No. 14 overall seed, knocking off No. 3 Tennessee in a super regional.
Freshman Audrey Vandagriff leads the Crimson Tide with a .407 batting average, along with 48 stolen bases in 56 attempts. She set the program record for stolen bases by a freshman in a season, along with the record for stolen bases in a game (five).
Alabama generally relies on two arms: Catelyn Riley and Jocelyn Briski. Riley has a 10-3 record with a 2.59 ERA across 110 ⅔ innings, while Briski has a 2.78 ERA and 16-12 record in 153 ⅓ frames.
The Hokies and Tide matched up earlier this season in Tuscaloosa and split a two-game set. Tech won the first game 2-1 behind gutsy pitching from Emma Lemley and two game-saving catches in left field by Lyla Blackwell. Alabama figured out Virginia Tech’s pitching in the second matchup for a 9-1 win for the home team.
“I don’t [the experience in Tuscaloosa] much will be different. Even in those February games, Alabama packs a good crowd, and their fans are super dedicated — and so are ours,” Lemley said. “I think it’ll be a little bit crazier, a little bit louder, but I don’t think it’s anything that we haven’t faced.”
Jackson State won the double-elimination Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament with wins over Southern, Bethune-Cookman, Alabama State and Florida A&M. Ka'Liyah Gipson and Jace Jackson lead the Tigers (29-23) in batting average, with .445 and .436 marks, respectively. Jackson also has six home runs, the most on the team.
The Tigers mostly use Brooklyn Morris, Jorgina Gant and Sofia Gonzalez in the circle. Morris has tossed a team-high 133 frames and collected a 13-8 record, 3.53 ERA and 49 strikeouts during that span. Gant has a 9-7 record with a 3.83 ERA and 38 strikeouts across 102 ⅓ frames. In another 62 ⅓ innings, Gonzalez accrued a 7-5 record, 5.05 earned run average and 20 punchouts.
Virginia Tech first baseman Michelle Chatfield missed the ACC Tournament after sustaining a left wrist injury during the regular season finale against Florida State. Virginia Tech head coach Pete D’Amour said she is day-to-day.
“She took a couple swings today, some swings yesterday,” D’Amour said. “She looked really good on Tuesday, so we’ll see when game time happens.”
After winning 17 consecutive games in the middle of the season, the Hokies stumbled a bit down the stretch. They dropped two of three games to Pitt, then lost a series to Florida State — culminating in a no-hitter for Seminoles arm Jazzy Francik. Then, Tech won the final game against Florida State and defeated North Carolina in the ACC Tournament quarterfinal before surrendering a seven-run lead to Clemson the next day — when the Hokies’ pitchers struggled to grip the ball amid a downpour.
“I’m not naive enough to think that this weekend doesn’t mean anything, but you go out and you play hard and you stay focused — then you see what happens,” D’Amour said. “Obviously, we want to win. When you play well, you have an opportunity to win. I think one of the things that gets lost with the rain game last week was we beat Florida State, we beat North Carolina, and for five innings against Clemson, we all saw what happened. Then the rain came, and you can’t control that, but for those two-and-a-half games, we were playing pretty darn well.
“I don’t think we’ve got to go reinvent the wheel because it’s postseason.”
Here is the tale of the tape, courtesy of Chip Grubb:
