Virginia Tech baseball battled late in its regular-season finale against Clemson on Saturday, but it wasn’t enough to make up for its shortcomings in a 10-8 loss at English Field.
Griffin Stieg labored for the Hokies (29-23, 15-15 ACC) with six earned runs, and though they had plenty of hits and received seven free passes — two walks and five hit by pitches — they left 15 runners on base while batting 3-for-15 with them in scoring position.
The offense scored seven of its eight runs in the first and ninth innings but couldn’t produce much against an aggressive Tigers (31-25, 10-20) bullpen effort in the frames between. They used 10 arms, with six of their nine pitching changes coming with Tech runners in scoring position. Before the ninth inning, the Hokies had no hits on the at-bat following any of those pitching changes.
“It’s hard when no one’s seen them yet. You’re the guinea pig,” Hokies designated hitter Hudson Lutterman said. “It’s tough, just not getting into a rhythm. You don’t spend as much time as if it were a starter. [It takes] good team talk, batter to batter, like what’s the movement on his pitches and trying our best to communicate.”
That was made more difficult by Clemson starter Aidan Knaak’s short outing. Like Tigers starters Michael Sharman on Friday and Dane Moehler on Thursday, Knaak received limited work in preparation for the ACC Tournament, so the Hokies didn’t face an arm they could sit with.
But unlike with most of the other pitchers they faced, they didn’t need much time to jump on Knaak. The right-hander's second batter of the game, Ethan Gibson, mashed a 415-foot home run to left-center to put the Hokies on the board first.
Knaak threw two pitches over the head of Henry Cooke during his subsequent walk, igniting game-long jawing between the teams, as well as exchanged words between Tech head coach John Szefc and Clemson head coach Erik Bakich. Warnings were put in place, but the chippiness continued when Hudson Lutterman cracked his 10th homer of the year to push Tech ahead 4-0, and Tigers catcher Nate Savoie took exception to his celebration. Officials quickly cooled the situation, though.
The Hokies still had just one out, but the inning ended without any more runs, stranding runners on second and third after Nick Locurto reached on an error and Pete Daniel singled.
Knaak, who pitched six one-run innings at last year’s ACC Tournament to end Tech’s season, exited the game after that — but Stieg was also struggling.
He allowed two first-inning hits but stranded both; it was a familiar sequence for the redshirt junior, who has turned similar escapes into four quality starts this year. After that, however, he had far more trouble leaving runners on base.
Tigers shortstop Tyler Lichtenberger and third baseman Jay Dillard combined for back-to-back singles to make it 4-1 in the second inning.
The visitors followed with five runs in the third. Stieg sent second baseman Jarren Purify a four-pitch walk before center fielder Tryston McCladdie and Savoie singled, the latter of whom picked up an RBI.
Then, first baseman Luke Gaffney cleared the bases with a home run before Stieg’s outing ended at 2 ⅓ innings with a Lichtenberger walk two batters later. The last of his six earned runs was plated after Luke Craytor replaced him and surrendered a single to outfielder Jack Crighton, who combined with Lichtenberger for a run-scoring double steal.
Stieg has allowed 17 earned runs in his last 8 ⅔ innings of work.
“He obviously hasn’t been locating very well,” Szefc said. “He’s been putting balls in the fat part of the plate, and guys are having way more comfortable at-bats against him. … The game is about adjustments. He’s at a stage where we’ve got to make some adjustments with him.”
Strangely, the right-hander’s side of the batter’s box came out of the ground as Lichtenberger slid home. The play left the sophomore clutching at his midsection. English Field is made of AstroTurf, but an incident like that has not occurred in recent memory.
His steal put Clemson up 6-4, but Craytor pitched a clean 2 ⅔ innings before Madden Clement — in his first ACC inning since 2024 — tossed a three-batter sixth frame in just 11 pitches.
Preston Crowl allowed Clemson’s next three scoring plays: RBI singles from Jacob Jarrell and Crighton and a Purify solo home run. Brody Roe gave up another solo shot to Crighton in the ninth, which put Clemson’s lead at 10-5.
After Knaak’s exit, Clemson left-hander Justin LeGuernic served as the Tigers’ only arm to throw two innings or more. He picked up the win despite earning the Hokies’ only run between the second and eighth inning: a Henry Cooke sacrifice fly in the fourth. Right-hander Nathan Dvorsky allowed it, though LeGuernic pitched the bases loaded just before.
After Cooke’s RBI, there were two more runners in scoring position and one out, but Ethan Ball lined out to the first baseman and Lutterman flied out.
It was one of two deep drives from the sophomore that might have left the park if not for an ankle injury that had him hobbling around the bases all weekend. Lutterman — whose 10 homers are the second-most on the team — was injured before Tech’s midweek win over Liberty on May 6, twisting his ankle during a pregame drill.
He’s been working diligently with director of sports medicine Kyle Staggers to return at a crucial time in the season, but he isn’t 100 percent.
“The biggest thing is not being able to turn fully and turn fast,” Lutterman said. “I feel like a couple of those line drives could have left if I turned a little bit faster, but I’m happy with the results. This is where we’re at, so I’ve gotta find a new way to get those to fall.”
Lutterman’s next close call came in the eighth inning when, with the bases loaded and two outs, he barreled another ball to left field that was caught. The ninth also ended on a Lutterman fly out, though that one likely wasn’t leaving the park even if he was fully healthy.
That capped a last-ditch three-run inning for the Hokies, but they needed five after entering the frame down 10-5. Locurto singled and Willie Hurt walked to start the rally before Treyson Hughes — both Hughes and Hurt pinch-hit — grounded out to advance them. Owen Petrich registered an RBI while getting on base with a Lichtenberger error at shortstop.
Sam Grube flied out, Gibson walked to load the bases then Cooke made it 10-8 with a two-run single up the middle. Ball was hit by a pitch next, but Lutterman couldn’t come through with the bases loaded.
Still, the Hokies were largely encouraged after the loss. After all, their regular season ended on a good note in the ninth inning, and they entered Saturday’s game having already clinched a bye in the ACC Tournament.
“The bye is big,” Szefc said. “[We’ll take] any time you can get an extra day of rest this time of the year. We can practice twice [in Blacksburg]. We don’t have to turn right around and play on Tuesday, and that’s a big deal coming off a weekend like this.”
After the rest of ACC action on Saturday, the Hokies clinched the No. 7 seed in the tournament and will play the winner of No. 10 seed Notre Dame and No. 15 seed Clemson (Tuesday at 5 p.m. ET) on Wednesday at 5 p.m. in Charlotte. It’s the first time they’ve secured a first-round bye since the event shifted to a bracket style last year.
“We’re seventh in the league. This league is freaking good, man. .500 in the league is a pretty good thing considering where we were at one point,” Szefc said. “We won four straight ACC series. I’ll take it at this stage of the game. We’re also relatively healthy … so I think we’re in a good place going into the postseason.”
The home loss to Clemson created one postseason wrinkle, however. The Hokies dropped 10 spots in the RPI to No. 47 — the biggest drop in the entire country after Saturday’s games — placing them more firmly on the bubble than they stood 24 hours ago.
How can one loss in a series you already won drop you 10 spots 52 games in?
There is currently a major logjam in the RPI between 37 and 47. For reference, Tech is 29 “RPI points” away from No. 37, but would need to drop 32 points to fall to No. 49, which is just two spots below where it currently stands. RPI points are changes in a team’s decimal rating shifted four places to the right. For example, a 0.0015 drop equals 15 RPI points.
The aforementioned logjam magnifies in the 40s: Szefc and Co. are just five points away from No. 43 and nine away from No. 42. They ended up at the bottom of this cluster for a couple of reasons.
One, the Clemson loss became more damaging after indirect RPI impact games (matchups that prior opponents play). Because of those, teams typically gain or lose a few points after every gameday. But Clemson lost 16 RPI points Saturday, making Virginia Tech’s home loss to the Tigers even more hurtful in an already tightly packed area of the RPI.
Tech lost a few points from indirect RPI impact games yesterday, too, but was wrecked by them all weekend. The biggest piece of the RPI formula is a team’s opponents’ winning percentage. All five of the ACC teams Tech did not play this season — North Carolina, Florida State, Wake Forest, Notre Dame and Louisville — beat teams it did play this weekend, lowering its overall opponent winning percentage and further damaging its RPI.
Those individual metric hits typically would not cause such a dramatic RPI fall, but they combined to be just enough to place the Hokies at the bottom of such a tight cluster.
Still, if the season ended today, they’d likely still be in the NCAA Tournament. They went 15-15 in the ACC (which nearly always gets teams in), are 14th in strength of schedule and 25th in Diamond Sports Ranking, a metric the NCAA approved for tournament committee use late last year.
However, they can likely no longer treat next Wednesday’s ACC Tournament game against Notre Dame or Clemson like a midweek, which was in the cards before. Tech would feel far more comfortable with a win before a possible matchup against No. 2 North Carolina in the quarterfinals.
If it leaves the conference tournament winless, its exact résumé remains to be seen, but an anxious Selection Monday would likely follow.
Box Score: Clemson 10, Virginia Tech 8