Virginia Tech baseball keeps rolling. In head coach John Szefc’s ninth year at the helm, the Hokies look closer than ever to playing their first non-Blacksburg regional in his tenure. Just a month ago, it seemed like another season headed for disappointment.
Now, a day ahead of the Hokies’ two-game series against UNC Greensboro in Blacksburg, they’re No. 32 in the RPI with 10 wins in their last 13 games. They were in a good situation last week, before a series win over Cal and midweek victory over Liberty (No. 27 on the RPI), so where do they stand now?
Unsurprisingly, an even better spot — though not so much so that they can safely absorb a loss to the Spartans or, more importantly, a series loss to Clemson to close the regular season. That would leave Tech (26-21, 13-14 ACC) with a sub-.500 ACC record and likely keep it out of the NCAA Tournament, though that isn’t a guarantee.
The last under-.500 ACC team to make the postseason was 2023 NC State, which finished 13-16 in the league, 36-21 overall and was selected to the Columbia Regional. Aspects of that Wolfpack team’s résumé were remarkably similar to Tech’s this year.
It finished No. 24 in RPI despite an 11-19 record in Quadrant 1 games while ranking 20th in strength of schedule, while VT should finish somewhere around 10th. NC State didn't have a particularly impressive series win but salvaged high-profile games against Miami, Virginia and Boston College. Sound familiar?
A good sign for Tech is that it hasn’t been swept in the ACC this year, while NC State was swept twice in 2023 — once in a two-game series at College World Series-bound Wake Forest.
True as that is, it isn’t something Tech can count on. It’s important to mention that the Wolfpack beat No. 16 Duke in the ACC Tournament in Durham, N.C., which may have been the difference between making and missing the NCAAs.
All in all, if the Hokies beat bottom-of-the-ACC Clemson (which is not going to be easy), they’re safely in the field of 64. If they don’t, they’re not completely out of the race, but the committee has its best excuse — among others, like their near-.500 overall record and 5-11 mark in Quadrant 1 games — to keep them out. The last two ACC teams to finish 14-16 were 2025 Notre Dame and 2024 Virginia Tech, lower-RPI teams that were not selected to a regional.
UNC Greensboro Preview
The next step for Tech is beating UNC Greensboro on Saturday and Sunday.
There isn’t much for it to gain here. This weekend brings two Quadrant 4 games that may drop its RPI regardless of what happens, though the Spartans (No. 140) don’t cause the same RPI damage as the kind of programs NC State and Miami have canceled games against this time of year (North Carolina A&T and FIU, respectively).
Szefc is 4-2 against UNC Greensboro at Tech, including an early-season series last year in which the Spartans pulled out a sneaky 6-2 Friday win and scored half of their runs off Brett Renfrow. The Hokies lost despite recording 14 strikeouts, a consequence of the offense batting 8-for-33 and working just two walks.
It’d be surprising for either of this year’s matchups to go that way. Tech’s offense is hot and the Spartans have the worst ERA (7.14) in the Southern Conference, with only one arm who’s been able to carve out a year-long rotation role.
That would be junior lefty Noah Chapman, who owns a 6.41 ERA. He has played one ACC team this season — Pitt in February — and gave up six runs over four innings. He recorded a quality start against VMI last Friday, while right-hander Mayson Dear (8.63 ERA) did the same in Game 2 during his third start of the year.
Those two are the Spartans’ likely starters this weekend. Their bullpen is headlined by closer John Horton (4.91 ERA), a righty from Virginia Beach who notched three saves against VMI.
The more interesting question is how the Hokies handle their rotation with six games in eight days beginning Saturday. If they use Renfrow in Game 1 vs. UNCG, he’ll get just four days of rest before a far more pivotal start against Clemson on Thursday. It’s also not Szefc’s style — or generally recommended — to give an arm nearly two weeks’ rest, so Renfrow and Griffin Stieg could start under pitch counts with short leashes. They could also not pitch at all, but that’d be surprising with Renfrow throwing like the best arm in the country over the last two weeks.
UNC Greensboro is also near the bottom of the Southern Conference in offense, sporting .282/.378/.425 team batting splits. It doesn’t have a player with more than eight home runs, though catcher Tanner Berry (.370 batting average) and freshman first baseman Jake Mueller (.343) have had success getting on base.
The Spartans swept VMI last weekend and will enter Blacksburg on a five-game win streak, but they’re still a manageable matchup for Tech.
Clemson Looms
The Hokies don’t play Clemson until May 14, but the Tigers are incredibly difficult to ignore right now.
Just under two weeks ago, they were 6-15 in the ACC, were just swept at Louisville and appeared to be Tech’s worst conference foe this season. However, they’ve since taken two of three from No. 22 Boston College and bested No. 8 Coastal Carolina 8-4 on Tuesday.
On a different note, Clemson’s win at Coastal was not ideal for anyone hoping the Hokies were headed to a Conway, S.C., regional, as D1Baseball projected on Monday. The committee tries to regionally group teams for the first round of the tournament, but there are only so many non-ACC host hopefuls — teams from the same conference can’t be in the same regional — within a 400-mile radius of Tech.
Clemson’s talent has never been a question; if and when it was going to turn that into wins was. At 8-16 in ACC, it’s too late for head coach Erik Bakich and Co. to put together a résumé worth considering without — at the bare minimum — beating No. 14 FSU this weekend and sweeping the Hokies, so expect a hungry, ascending opponent for Tech at English Field in six days. It may be its toughest matchup since Boston College a month ago.
The Tigers’ series against the Seminoles this weekend should offer a better sense of whether they’re on a regression-to-the-mean run or legit contenders come the ACC Tournament on May 19.
With NC State (12-12 ACC), Virginia (12-12), Wake Forest (14-13) and Miami (14-11) all within arm’s length in the ACC standings, a series win against Clemson could put Tech in position for a first-round bye in Charlotte. A sweep would likely guarantee it.
If the season ended today, the Hokies would be the No. 9 seed in the conference tournament — the highest possible seed for a team that must play in the first round.The Hokies have the Spartans first (3 p.m. ET on Saturday, ACCNX), but it’d be hard to believe they don’t have one eye on Clemson.
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