Virginia Tech beat Cal 6-2 on Saturday, setting up a sweep opportunity for Griffin Stieg and a surging offense on Sunday, but both struggled as the Golden Bears salvaged a 9-4 win.
It may seem natural to begin with Sunday’s game as the most recent one, but Saturday’s win was far more important for the Hokies (25-21, 13-14 ACC), who did just what they needed to this weekend despite failing to grab their first sweep of the season.
They entered the weekend needing to take two or more games off the Golden Bears (24-23, 8-16) to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive. Now a game off .500 in ACC play, which is likely where Tech will need to be to make a regional, it only has ACC dweller Clemson left on its regular-season schedule.
Saturday’s game in Berkeley, Calif., ensured that Tech is positioned well, and came with a wealth of firsts.
It was the Hokies’ first road series win of the season and first time winning three straight ACC series since April 2025. The last time they won a conference series in May was 2022. It was the first instance this season the Hokies won an ACC series by taking the first two games of the weekend and first time they won one without the services of Stieg, resulting in their first opportunity to sweep a conference foe this year.
It also brought Tech to .500 in ACC play for the first time this year. Though it’s now a game below (13-14), it has been an arduous road back from marks as low as 2-4 and 5-9.
On Saturday, young right-handers Logan Eisenreich and Ethan Grim held Cal to 7 ⅔ one-run innings. Eisenreich tossed eight strikeouts — tying his career high — which he used to get himself out of trouble at the tail end of his five-inning, two-hit and one-walk start.
Hokies head coach John Szefc has lauded the South Riding native’s effectiveness — his velocity and pitch movement, primarily on his low-90s sinker and 94-95 mph fastball, is among the best on the team — as long as he can locate and stay in front of batters, which he did against the Golden Bears for his first winning decision of the year.
Grim followed suit, striking out four of his 11 batters before allowing a pair of singles in the eighth. Preston Crowl registered his fifth save of the year by escaping that scenario and holding Cal to one run in the bottom of the ninth.
After Saturday’s game, Tech’s pitching had held opponents to two or fewer runs in its last three games while outscoring them 29-4. The offense put together six of those runs on Saturday, four of which came in a pivotal third inning.
Cal starter Gavin Eddy (3.29 ERA coming in) and Eisenreich had yet to allow a baserunner through two innings, but Sam Gates, the first batter of the third inning, saw something his teammates hadn’t; he pulled a solo home run into deep right field. After Owen Petrich and Pete Daniel contact outs, it seemed like that was all Tech would get in the third.
Instead, Sam Grube battled for a seven-pitch, full-count walk before Ethan Gibson singled him to third. Then, Henry Cooke blasted his fourth ACC home run on the first pitch of the next at-bat, giving Tech an early 4-0 lead.
The Golden Bears grabbed a run back in the bottom of the fourth as Eisenreich allowed singles to first baseman Daniel Murillo and designated hitter Lawson Olmstead around left fielder Carl Schmidt’s hit by pitch. With two on and two outs after Olmstead's RBI, though, Cal could’ve done more damage, but Eisenreich struck out center fielder Ethan Kodama in a relatively uncompetitive at-bat to end the inning.
Eisenreich pitched himself out of trouble in the fifth, too. He hit shortstop Brady Errecart and walked second baseman Taichi Nakao, putting a pair of runners aboard with one out. The sophomore was out of the inning five pitches later, striking out catcher Hideki Prather and forcing Murillo to fly out.
Grim replaced Eisenreich to start the sixth, blowing through both that inning and the seventh in just seven batters, striking out three of them. Murillo and Schmidt managed base hits in the eighth to end the Mohnton, Pa., native’s outing at 2/ ⅔ innings with four strikeouts and no free bases allowed. Crowl replaced the freshman, needing just one out to escape. He got it with Kodama’s strikeout, though he walked Olmstead to load the bases first.
In the ninth inning, Errecart leadoff doubled for Cal’s first extra-base hit all series, and he came around two batters later as pinch-hitter Kalen Applefield struck an RBI single into right field. Crowl still had a four-run cushion (6-2), though, so he calmly pitched the last two outs — with some help from Pete Daniel. The shortstop made a sliding catch on an awkward Prather bloop into shallow left for out two. Murillo popped out after that to clinch Tech’s series win.
Before that, the Hokies added insurance runs in the seventh and ninth innings. Ethan Gibson dropped an RBI single into left field in the seventh, Cal’s first frame without Eddy, who finished with 10 strikeouts and four earned runs.
Right-hander Cole Clark allowed Gibson’s knock, as well as the Daniel ground-ball single that preceded it. In the ninth inning, Daniel’s two-out walk was followed by a Grube triple — his first of the year — bringing Daniel around for the second time in three innings and putting the Hokies ahead 6-1.
Game 2 Box Score: Virginia Tech 6, Cal 2
Onto Sunday, which served as just Tech’s third loss in its last 12 games. A sweep would have been advantageous with the Hokies’ NCAA Tournament résumé in mind, but they’ve already notched the series win over Cal that was non-negotiable to that end.
Though hindsight is 20/20, the Golden Bears’ 9-4 win ended up being decided by the second inning. Stieg simply wasn’t as effective as he was against NC State and Pitt over the last two weeks — series in which he threw a combined 13 innings of four-run ball.
The right-hander pitched a clean first frame but faltered in the second. Schmidt barreled the first pitch of the frame into left field before Applefield walked and Errecart singed in Schmidt. Kodama put down a sacrifice bunt to give Cal a 2-0 lead before first baseman Gannon Snyder singled to put two aboard for Prather.
The Golden Bears had two runs and just one extra-base hit in the series (a double) coming into Sunday, but Prather launched a three-run bomb to left-center to give them a 5-0 lead by the end of the second inning. It was the first time in nine games that the Hokies did not score first.
Prather (2-for-5, five RBI) homered his next time up, too. Stieg walked Snyder before Prather took him to deep left field, putting Cal up 7-2 at the end of the fourth, which was Stieg’s last inning. He finished with seven earned runs, three walks and five hits allowed around just two strikeouts.
However, Tech felt that home plate umpire Will Posey was not giving Stieg, nor the Hokies pitchers that followed him, accurate strike calls. The Hokies’ dugout was first warned to stop arguing balls and strikes after Prather’s second home run. Then, in the seventh inning, Grube struck out looking on a pitch that appeared well outside. Tech’s dugout jawed at the umpires again and pitcher Peyton Smith was even ejected. That didn’t stop the noise, though, with the dugout adamant that Posey had ejected the wrong player.
Szefc came raring out of the bullpen after that, but eventually waved Posey off, uninterested in his explanation. Even though Posey probably didn’t have his finest day behind the plate, he only ejected Smith despite numerous warnings to players and associate head coach Kurt Elbin.
Posey didn’t do the Tech’s offense any favors on Sunday, but neither did the group. The Hokies answered both of Prather’s bombs with those of their own, but they simply didn’t garner as many runs. Grube mashed a two-run bomb in the third and Cooke had a solo shot in the fifth.
Other than the long balls, Tech was 6-for-32 from the plate, allowing Cal right-hander Ethan Foley to put together a three-run, seven-strikeout start over six innings. Fellow righties Otto Espinoza and Cade Colombara pitched the final three frames with just one run allowed: a Colombra wild pitch that allowed Willie Hurt to come across in the ninth.
Tech threatened in that frame, leading the bases with two outs while Gates and Gibson came inches away from homers, but ultimately fell 9-4. The Golden Bears grabbed a pair of insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth via Kodama’s RBI single, which included a second run as Grube errored on a throw from right field to home.
The sixth inning also seemed to contain the early stages of a comeback, with Petrich and Daniel singles, but the former made an overly zealous run for third on the latter’s knock, earning him an earful from Elbin and the end of the inning.
The Hokies’ weekend in Berkeley was an overall success, though, taking the series 2-1. Next up is a Quadrant 1 opportunity against Liberty in Lynchburg at 6 p.m. ET on Wednesday. The Flames (35-13) have won four straight games against Tech with 11 or more runs in all but one of those matchups.
Game 3 Box Score: Cal 9, Virginia Tech 4