In the third inning of Virginia Tech baseball’s biggest game of the season, associate head coach Kurt Elbin was ejected.
He noticed NC State starter Luke Hemric not making contact with the pitching rubber, which is illegal at all levels of baseball. Elbin, who was coaching third base, pointed it out. Third plate umpire Dylan Bradley continued not to call the infraction, and ejected Elbin as he kept arguing his case.
That explanation is not especially important — at least not as much as Elbin’s emotional display on his way out, lighting a fire under a team amid its biggest game of the season.
“He said, ‘Get this win for me,’ Tech second baseman Ethan Ball said. You could still hear the enthusiasm in his voice as he recalled it.
The Hokies did win, downing NC State 5-4 for their second straight ACC series victory — another in a string of back-against-the-wall wins this year. Ball accounted for all but one of his team’s runs, shooting a go-ahead three-run home run in the sixth inning and adding a game-winning sacrifice fly in the eighth.
All of a sudden, Tech (22-20, 11-13 ACC) is one of the hottest teams in the ACC with wins in six of its last eight — a span that included two one-run rubber match wins to take series over Pitt and NC State. Ball and Co. are well-situated at No. 38 in RPI, largely due to their 8-3 record in series finales.
“We’re relentless on Sundays,” Ball said. “Which has obviously been a big part of our success. When our back’s up against the wall, we’ve really got no choice, especially during this time of year.”
Ball’s once-teammate at McLean High School, Griffin Stieg, has been the primary force in Tech’s late-series success. The redshirt junior has started all but one of its six ACC wins on Sundays.
Against the Wolfpack (27-16, 10-11), he pitched six of his season-high seven innings scoreless, surrendering all of his earned runs on a bases-clearing Sherman Johnson double in the sixth. Tech intentionally walked the runner who loaded the bases.
Before and after that inning, though, Stieg didn’t allow a runner past first base. He finished with three strikeouts, two walks and 17 contact outs. The Wolfpack went down in four or fewer batters in every frame besides the sixth, allowing Stieg to engineer an uber-efficient 90-pitch outing that sat at 58 pitches through five frames.
The Wolfpack simply could not square up on Stieg’s pitch mix, even as it wandered around the zone.
“He doesn’t throw a whole lot straight,” Hokies head coach John Szefc said of Stieg. “It’s moving this way or that way, and yet it’s in the zone. He forces you to swing at something that’s not straight, and that’s hard to do. He doesn’t throw a whole lot of three-ball counts or get behind in a count.”
The Hokies received quality starts from both Stieg — his fifth of the year — and Brett Renfrow this weekend, a key alignment that hasn’t always taken shape this year with both pitchers’ ERAs still above 5.00. This weekend, however, they combined for 15 innings of three-run ball to help Tech win the series opener and finale.
“If you’re going to be best, your best players have got to play their best — in any sport,” Szefc said. “Any coach in any sport will tell you that, and you’re starting to see that [with us] now.”
With Stieg and, to a lesser extent, Hemric, blazing through batters, there was only one run scored through Sunday’s first five innings. Tech struck first in the second.
Ball (2-for-2) doubled to open the frame, advancing to third with a deep Hudson Lutterman flyout to center field. Willie Hurt followed with a slow roller to third base to bring Ball home and put the Hokies ahead 1-0.
Elbin was tossed in the third inning. Tech took issue with the officiating crew’s handling of a weather delay Saturday, as well as a wide strike zone, and things seemed to boil over in Game 3.
Bradley — who was behind home plate in Game 2 — threw Elbin out after repeated pleas for Hemric to be called for not toeing the rubber, which, by rule, should result in a balk.
“Their pitcher, when he faced left-handed hitters, was not in contact with the rubber,” Szefc said. “He was not. It was clear. Our good friend down there umpiring third base was very reluctant to make a change in calling things. So, we called him on it. That’s our job, right? Apparently, this guy thought otherwise.
“I can say a lot of other things, but I won’t. I’m going to tell you this: Kurt was right. He was right to question it, I questioned it and I’m going to keep questioning stuff that’s going to put our team in a bad place. … Apparently, that official thought it was OK to put our guys in a bad place, and it wasn’t. So, we questioned it.”
Ball’s perspective was more lighthearted.
“I personally think he was trying to pump us up by getting tossed out,” he said. “He fired us up when he was leaving … and we got the win.”
If anyone was psyched up by Elbin, it was Ball, who twice answered lead-taking or game-tying top halves by NC State with go-ahead runs in the bottom side.
In the sixth, just two outs after Johnson’s three-RBI double, Ball slammed a 414-foot no-doubter over the opposing bullpen behind right field. Sam Grube singled and Henry Cooke walked to get on base just before it.
“He’s always been a stud, man,” Stieg said of Ball. “It was the same thing when I pitched against him in high school. He’s done that here and he’s been huge.”
Stieg was a senior when Ball was a freshman, by the way.
The McLean native produced the game-winner in the eighth inning, just after Preston Crowl surrendered the tying run (at four) on Ty Head’s RBI double in the top side.
Ethan Gibson managed Tech’s fourth leadoff hit of the game before Cooke jacked a ground-rule double into deep left field, putting runners on second and third.
After batting 1-for-14 against Pitt last weekend and 0-for-4 on Saturday, Ball entered Sunday’s game trying to, in his words, “keep it simple” — and that’s exactly what he did to win the game. Gibson crossed home plate courtesy of a run-of-the-mill sacrifice fly.
“It just goes back to trying not to do too much,” said Ball, who was 3-for-9 with two homers this weekend despite his four-strikeout Game 2. “Yesterday, I was trying to get too big, so I just dumbed it down and tried to play simple today.”
NC State challenged the sacrifice fly, claiming that Gibson left third early, but to no avail. Only three outs separated the Hokies from a series win, so they turned to Chase Swift, who closed on Friday, too.
That ninth inning lasted just 11 pitches, while Sunday’s took 12 and resulted in the sophomore’s first career save. Johnson fouled out, pinch-hitter Vincent DeCarlo flied out, then another pinch-hitter, Brandon Navoy, struck out on a patented Swift changeup.
“That kid’s a rock,” Stieg said. “The moment never seems too big for him. … He might not throw the hardest, but you know he’s gonna go out there and get swing and misses.”
”He’s got a Bugs Bunny changeup, man,” Szefc said. “It’s the best pitch on our staff. … A lefty with a changeup is miserable to face.”
Next, Tech will try to forge its seventh win in nine games vs. James Madison on Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET on ACC Network Extra. The Dukes (18-24) played Tech close on Feb. 24, losing 5-4, so it won’t be a shoo-in for the Hokies.
For now, Virginia Tech is in the best spot it has been in all year, creeping towards .500 in ACC play — currently 11-13 — with winnable series against Cal and Clemson remaining. It would need to win four games across those series to finish .500.
“If you finish .500 in this league, I don’t know how you can’t be a postseason team,” Szefc said. “We’ve just got to keep winning games.”
Box Score: Virginia Tech 5, NC State 4