No. 2 seed Virginia Tech baseball’s first regional game since 2022 was largely decided by a series of ground balls.
No. 3 seed Cal Poly chopped, bounced and poked a plethora of grounders in and through the infield for a series of hits that led to its 6-2 win in the Los Angeles Regional, bumping the Hokies down into the elimination bracket.
They’ll play a do-or-die game against No. 1 overall seed UCLA on Saturday at 4 p.m. ET on ESPNU. Saint Mary’s became the first No. 4 seed to ever knock off the top seed of the NCAA Tournament in the first game of the regional round. No. 1 overall seeds were previously 26-0.
That presented Tech (36-23) with an opportunity. If it could do away with the Mustangs (31-24), the path to taking the winners’ bracket would not have featured perhaps the best team in the country. However, the Hokies scored their fewest runs in a loss since April 12, and their season will be on the line against the Bruins.
Head coach John Szefc said Brett Renfrow will start against UCLA, but even if Tech wins, it must win three more consecutive games to advance to a Super Regional.
On Friday, seven of the Mustangs’ 13 hits came on the ground, and two more infield choppers resulted in RBI, even if they weren’t hits. Not all of those seemed playable, but Tech’s infield had a difficult time making tough plays on a dirt infield, which plays differently than English Field’s AstroTurf.
“That’s a whole different place to play than what our guys have seen,” Szefc said. “But you still gotta make pitches, and give them credit, that’s what happens sometimes. Put balls in play and they find holes. That’s exactly what happened."
Conversely, the Hokies grounded out plenty, but two were particularly damaging. In the second and seventh innings, Owen Petrich came to the plate with less than two outs and at least two runners on. Both times, Cal Poly starter Griffin Naess got him to flub into an inning-ending double play.
Plays like that, as well as nine strikeouts for Naess over his seven-inning start, kept Tech 2-for-14 with runners on base, 1-for-7 with them in scoring position and 1-for-9 with two outs. The junior right-hander threw 117 pitches, many of them filthy changeups that heavily contributed to six of Tech’s nine batters striking out more than once.
“It didn’t matter who we were going to play the first game, we were going to throw Griffin,” Cal Poly head coach Larry Lee said. “Changeups, for me, have always been the best pitch in baseball, because it’s very hard to practice against a changeup."
“The West Coast uses a lot of changeups,” Naess said. “[Tech] isn’t from here. So, I knew I could throw that thing a lot.”
Logan Eisenreich got the start for the Hokies, and though he pitched himself out of trouble — Cal Poly left seven runners on base in the first three innings — he got himself into more than he could handle.
After stranding two runners in the first inning — the only hit coming as an infield single — the sophomore right-hander allowed a double and two ground-ball singles before the second out of the next frame, giving Cal Poly a 2-0 lead.
Center fielder Casey Murray Jr., who finished 4-for-5, got his first hit during that sequence: a playable ball to shortstop Pete Daniel that he fumbled. However, nobody was making a play on Dante Vachini’s single through the middle for his team’s second run.
Before Eisenreich notched consecutive strikeouts to end the inning, shortstop Nate Castellon singled to third base and Alejandro Garza walked. Eisenreich’s pitches were moving well early, but the Mustangs took advantage of most of his mistakes. That included Cam Hoiland, who smacked a leadoff home run in the third inning to put Cal Poly ahead 3-1.
The last of Eisenreich’s four earned runs came in the fourth, when he loaded the bases with two walks and a hit by pitch, leading to Ethan Grim taking over and allowing Murray an RBI single — again, in the infield — that Petrich played cleanly. Murray was simply too fast.
“Zero intention,” Lee said of his team’s infield offense. “It’s about putting the ball in play. … That’s always been a formula for winning baseball.”
Murray singled on the ground again in the sixth inning for another RBI — this time through the left side of the infield — after Garza registered an RBI on a fifth-inning groundout. Grim finished with two earned runs over two innings and no strikeouts. Luke Craytor and Brendan Yagesh pitched the final 2 ⅔ innings scoreless.
“I don’t think the result was a result of [pitching],” Szefc said. “It’s going to be difficult to win a game in the postseason when you score two runs. That’s just reality.”
Naess struck out the side in the first inning, but the Hokies responded in the second with Ethan Ball’s leadoff hit by pitch and Hudson Lutterman’s double near foul ground in left field. Nick Locurto knocked in Ball and advanced Lutterman to third base before Daniel walked.
With the bases loaded and no outs, Sam Gates popped up. Then Petrich grounded into a double play.
“That was the beginning of the end, unfortunately,” Szefc said.
It was only the second inning, but Tech didn’t score again until the seventh.
Ironically, that came courtesy of another Petrich double-play ball. Daniel struck a leadoff double, taking advantage of a tiring Naess before Gates battled for a seven-pitch walk. Yet, Petrich emptied the bases after that, adding two outs but just one run. It wasn’t enough for a team down 6-1.
The Hokies hit just once in the two innings following Naess’ exit. They struck out five more times against left-hander Brady Estes and right-hander Nick Bonn, who registered his 16th save.
Virginia Tech’s trip to California might be awfully short. With a win on Friday, it could’ve lucked into a winners’ bracket final against No. 4 seed Saint Mary’s, which downed UCLA 3-2 with a ninth-inning solo home run before the Hokies-Mustangs game.
Instead, Szefc and Co.’s season hinges on a win over perhaps the best team in the country, likely upset coming off one of its worst offensive outputs of the year. The Hokies will hope that trend persists with a good outing from Renfrow, who has a 1.79 ERA in May. The win-or-go-home contest begins Saturday at 4 p.m. ET on ESPNU. Saint Mary’s and Cal Poly play the winner’s bracket final at 9 p.m. ET.
“That’s the way these regionals are, man,” Szefc said. “You have to be at your best all the time, because if you’re not, you will lose. We were not [against Cal Poly], and we lost. It’s simple.
“It’s actually good that we play [UCLA] early in the day. It’s gonna be good for guys to get back out there as soon as possible, regardless of who we’re playing. And the regionals are that way. It doesn’t really matter who you're playing. You talk about rankings and seeds and all this other stuff, but you have to be at your absolute best all the time in the postseason.”
Box Score: Cal Poly 6, Virginia Tech 2