DURHAM, N.C. — In its season finale at the ACC Tournament, Virginia Tech baseball proved what’s seemed clear throughout the entire back half of the season: It can’t compete with the conference’s best. Not in its current state, at least.
The 12th-seeded Hokies (31-25) were reminded of that one last time as fifth-seeded Clemson sent them from Durham back to Blacksburg in 6-1 fashion. Blame will fly around haphazardly, from coaching and injuries to NIL, but the fact remains, Tech was simply no match for the upper echelon of the ultra-competitive ACC this year.
With its second-round loss to the No. 14 Tigers (43-15) on Wednesday, it finished 5-14 against the top-seven seeds in the ACC Tournament.
“The league is good, as good as it’s ever been,” Hokies coach John Szefc said. “It continues to get better every year. It continues to get older every year. Playing 30-32 games in this league is challenging for any team. …
“We were down, at times, seven of our best players. I think if you took seven of the best players out of any lineup, any team in this league, it certainly wouldn’t help it. But I think the guys that were in the lineup did an honorable job, and they did the best they could do. They were prepared every day. We didn’t really get into talking about who’s not here as much as we were talking about who is.”
Key contributors Garrett Michel, Treyson Hughes, Jackson Cherry, Andrew Sentlinger, Madden Clement, Jackson Cherry and Griffin Stieg — all out for varying degrees of the season — are likely the players Szefc was referring to.
Only Cherry took the field against Clemson — a game in which Tech mustered just four hits, all off Clemson starter Aidan Knaak. The sophomore righty finished with six strikeouts, one walk and one earned run allowed.
“He’s the Friday night starter for Clemson,” Szefc said. “That’s going to tell you enough. If he’s pitching the first game over the weekend for Clemson, he’s usually pretty good.”
The Hokies’ last hit off Knaak — also their last all game — was a Clay Grady single in the fifth. Two of the others were Henry Cooke singles in the second and fourth innings, but he made it past first base neither time. The first hit?
A Ben Watson home run to deep-right field off the fifth pitch of the game to extend his hitting streak to 21 games. But that stretch will stop there. Not just because the season is over, but because the 2024 ACC batting champion — who hit a team-high .370 in league play this year — played his last game in a Hokies uniform on Wednesday.
“It’s meant a lot,” Watson said of his time at Tech. “I think everything happens for a reason. I met a lot of great men, a lot of great friends that I’ll remember forever and keep in touch with. A lot of great people. Got a lot better, closer to God. Just everything.”
Outfielders Sam Tackett, Cam Pittman and Cherry have also run out of eligibility along with pitchers Grant Manning and Cameron LeJeune.
However, when Watson’s right-side blast put Tech up 1-0 in the first inning, it seemed like their careers might see at least one more day. Some of those feelings must have subsided in the following side, though. At that point, Brett Renfrow began a fluctuating start with its worst inning.
Clemson center fielder Chris Cannarella doubled off Renfrow’s fifth pitch, then Jarren Purify singled behind him. Feeling pressure from runners on the corners and no outs, Renfrow sent his first and only wild pitch past Cooke behind the plate, but it took a lucky bounce off the backstop right back into his hand. Despite having more than enough time to retire Cannarella barreling in from third, the catcher missed the tag and it was tied at one.
Purify advanced to third off that sequence and the subsequent sacrifice grounder, but he didn’t even need to. Tigers left fielder Dominic Listi labeled a two-out homer right where Watson hit his, making it 3-1 Clemson.
Renfrow settled in after, punching out eight batters before either team struck again. But when that eventually came in the fifth, it was Clemson fueled by Listi once more. The sixth-year outfielder made it 5-1 with a two-out double that plated Purify — who was hit by a Renfrow pitch to get on — and Collin Priest, who singled. Watson leaped for it in left-center but was just out of range.
Like with Cooke’s misplay in the first, it could’ve been avoided entirely. Third baseman David Lewis — who pinch-hit for Hudson Lutterman the side before and then took over at third — attempted to barehand Priest’s grounder towards third but couldn’t pick it up. It may have been a tough throw, but it would’ve been the second out of the inning. If that were the case, Josh Paino’s subsequent strikeout would’ve ended the frame. Instead, Listi got to bat after Paino. Lewis finished the year tied for second on the team in errors with eight.
The Hokies were hitless after the fifth, getting on base just once with a Watson walk. They went down in order in three of the final four innings of their season. The pitching staff kept fighting, though.
Renfrow (5 ⅓ innings, six earned runs allowed) tallied his 10th strikeout to begin the sixth before surrendering hits to TP Wentworth and Andrew Ciufo, leading to Brendan Yagesh entering in relief. The junior got two relatively quick outs, but one was a Cannarella flyout that scored the final run of the game in sacrifice (6-1).
Reliever Mathieu Curtis (four strikeouts, one hit allowed) took over in the eighth and held the Tigers scoreless through 1 ⅔ innings, but the offense behind him continued to flounder. Clemson relievers Jacob McGovern (two innings, one walk, three Ks) and Joe Allen (one inning, one K) made sure of it in the last three frames. Davis, Cherry and Anderson French finished Tech’s season with a 1-2-3 ninth.
“You’re not gonna win many games scoring one,” Szefc said. “[Pitching] gave us a chance to come back in the game several different times. Didn’t happen. It’s a shame.”
Tech’s 2025 season has ended, but the process of team building is year-round, and questions about that naturally arise when there’s no longer anything to play for. Many of those will be answered with the MLB Draft on July 13.
Besides the aforementioned players who are out of eligibility, Michel, Cooke, Grady, Davis, Stieg, Curtis, and Sentlinger are all draft eligible with varying degrees of selection odds. Whatever happens then, Tech will retool all the same, hoping for a better tomorrow as it always has.
Box Score: Clemson 6, Virginia Tech 1