Not long after second baseman Ty Mainolfi’s two-run double to tie Friday’s game in the bottom of the ninth inning, No. 23 Boston College appeared to have walked off Virginia Tech baseball.
Center fielder Carter Hendrickson chopped a grounder near third base, which Owen Petrich made a sprawling stop on and threw to first in time, but it pulled Ethan Gibson off the bag by hair and a game-winning run got through instead of ending the inning. The Eagles’ dugout poured onto Eddie Pellagrini Diamond in celebration.
But the Hokies saw a sliver of hope — literally. A sliver of Gibson’s cleat was revealed to be touching first base after a Tech challenge. It was a new lease on life for the visitors, and they took advantage in the 10th inning with Sam Gates’ RBI single to put his team up by one.
And when even that wasn’t enough — Luke Craytor allowed a tying run through with a wild pitch in the bottom side — the Hokies’ offense responded again. In the 11th, Sam Grube took a four-pitch walk and came around with Hudson Lutterman’s triple beamed past third base and into foul ground.
Brody Roe let in another Eagles run on a wild pitch in the bottom of the 11th, so it’s fortunate for Tech that Pete Daniel knocked an insurance RBI single up the right side two batters after Lutterman’s triple. That became the winning knock in a series of could’ve been winning knocks, giving the Hokies a 9-8 victory over the Eagles for their third Friday win of the season and second in ACC play.
With three distinct Tech (16-16, 7-9 ACC) leads in the last three innings and an Eagles (24-12, 9-7) attack that refused to go away, Friday’s hectic ending was the kind that buries other notable storylines from a jam-packed first eight frames.
For example, the Hokies put together a season-high 17 hits — their most in ACC play since April 12, 2024. Ethan Ball (3-for-6), Hudson Lutterman (2-for-6) and Owen Petrich (2-for-5) all homered as the majority of Tech’s lineup managed multi-hit performances, including Henry Cooke (3-for-5) and Pete Daniel (4-for-5), who both walked once.
Logan Eisenreich made a stellar first start of the year, striking out six while allowing four hits and two earned runs across the first five innings.
The second of those earned runs came as right fielder Jack Toomey’s RBI single in the third, which combined with catcher Gunnar Johnson’s one-run double in the second to give Boston College its first and only lead at 2-1.
Ball’s team-high seventh homer of the year in the first frame gave Tech the first lead of the game, but it didn’t have much success off Eagles starter AJ Colarusso until the fourth.
Cooke doubled off the left-hander’s first pitch that inning, and scored after Daniel singled him to third and Gates grounded out to plate him. With the game tied at two, Petrich cracked a two-run homer to put Tech in front at 4-2. Lutterman followed suit next inning — his sixth of the year — for a fifth run.
Tech’s last score before extra innings came in the seventh, when Cooke followed Ball’s double with an outfield base hit to bring the freshman home.
Preston Crowl replaced Eisenreich to start the sixth and was mostly effective across his 74-pitch relief appearance. However, Boston College jumped on him early.
His first batter, Toomey, took a full-count walk and scored when Crowl’s second batter, Hendrickson, launched a two-run homer to cut Tech’s lead to one.
The Eagles hardly threatened Crowl throughout the rest of his outing, which the Hokies hoped would extend to the end of the game — but ended with a four-pitch walk to Colin Larson with one out in the ninth.
Craytor entered, blowing the save with back-to-back one-out doubles surrendered to Julio Solier and Mainolfi, the second of which scored two runs to tie the game at six. Craytor exited the inning soon after with Petrich and Gibson’s highlight play, but effectively blew another save in the bottom of the 10th. The right-hander’s wild pitch allowed Ben Williams — who was pinch-running for Johnson after a walk — to cross home plate, tying the game at seven.
Brody Roe kept Boston College away in the ninth despite a double by Toomey, who scored the Eagles’ eighth and final run off another wild pitch. A Nick Wang flyout and groundouts by Hendrickson and Gallo finally put them to bed — two innings after they believed they’d won.
Game 2 between Tech and Boston College will be played a few miles from Eddie Pellagrini Diamond at Fenway Park, where the Eagles will host their 14th annual ALS awareness game — the eighth time it’s been held at the Boston Red Sox’s ballpark. First pitch is at 2 p.m. ET on the ACC Network.