Virginia Tech baseball’s season looked poised to continue as it entered the ninth inning of an elimination game against No. 1 overall seed UCLA with a two-run lead.
However, two batters and two solo home runs later, the Hokies were on the ropes. Four more, and their season was over. Just like that.
No. 2 seed Virginia Tech outshined the Bruins through 51 outs, but with three left, UCLA showed why it was chosen as the nation’s No. 1 overall seed as it came from behind to walk it off and win 6-5.
“I thought we put ourselves in position to win,” Hokies head coach John Szefc said, “They’re the best team in the country for a reason. They’re not just going to roll over in their home park and have their season end. They’re going to make you work for everything, and that’s exactly what they did.”
Tech (30-26) was the first team eliminated in the Los Angeles Regional after falling to Cal Poly 6-2 on Friday. UCLA (52-7) moved on to play St. Mary’s again after losing to the Gaels to start the regional, but the Hokies won’t be around for the rest of the weekend. They had high hopes for their first regional since 2022, yet they leave L.A. winless.
“We wish we could have done better here,” Tech starting pitcher Brett Renfrow said. “It’s tough. … But it meant a lot. This program has been awesome to me, and it means a lot to be able to go out there and play for this team in a regional.”
The Hokies not only competed with UCLA, but had it backed into a corner, which hurt a little bit more. Survival was three outs away.
Madden Clement entered the ninth inning fresh off forcing consecutive outs that got Tech out of the eighth. Hudson Lutterman and Ethan Gibson combined for a leadoff double and single, respectively, to give Tech a two-run cushion in the top side at 5-3, while UCLA had not scored since the fifth inning.
Then, Mulivai Levu homered off a hanging breaking ball, the sixth pitch of the frame. Five pitches later, Roman Martin did the same. It was tied, and Clement’s season was done.
Ethan Grim, a true freshman who threw 43 pitches against the Mustangs on Friday, inherited a clean slate. He allowed two singles around a strikeout, then the walk-off base hit to second baseman Phoenix Call, plating pinch-hitter Dominic Cadiz from third base.
That ball came Nick Locuto’s way in left field, but he looked to be shifted too far right for a chance at it.
More than anyone else on the team, Locurto expresses how direly he’d hate for the season to end, and how badly he wants to keep playing with this group.
The ball dropped, signaling to him that it was over. He didn’t even bother fielding it.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow, to have your season end on that,” Szefc said. “I don’t think I’ve been through that one before.”
Still, Locurto — with a year of eligibility remaining and unlikely to be drafted — will have another year in Blacksburg if he so chooses.
Renfrow, set to be the team's highest draft pick since Gavin Cross went in the first round in 2022, will leave the program as one of the best arms to ever come through it. Griffin Stieg, who made his first relief appearance since his freshman year, will play pro ball, too. Preston Crowl is also a toolsy pitcher who might have pitched his final game for Tech.
All of those arms were used against the Bruins as Tech exhausted every resource to try and keep its season alive. It worked until the ninth, even as it allowed 12 hits and five walks while hitting two batters. Even Renfrow didn’t throw his cleanest game; he simply kept runners off home plate.
Owen Petrich, Ethan Gibson and Ethan Ball blasted solo home runs to tie or take leads. The Hokies scored in four of the last five innings, literally going down swinging. Five of their six hits brought a run home.
However, UCLA mashed four solo shots. Catcher Cashel Dugger responded to a third-inning Sam Grube RBI single with a home run in the fourth. Right fielder Jarrod Hocking’s RBI double gave the Bruins their first lead that same inning, and outfielder Will Gasparino — returning from a one-game suspension — retook a 3-2 advantage after Petrich’s two-strike bomb in the fifth.
The Hokies scored the next three runs via homers from Gibson and Ball, along with Lutterman’s RBI single, and had all of the momentum as things wound down. Then the ninth inning spoiled Tech’s season.
Renfrow, coming off over two weeks of rest, was not quite the arm that entered with a 1.79 ERA in May. He faced a strong team, but struggled to locate. He threw just 55 of his 94 pitches for strikes while walking four batters, contributing to lengthy innings that made for his fifth-shortest start of the year.
“They caused a lot of foul balls and got my pitch count up,” Renfrow said. “That helped them a lot, and I needed to attack the zone a little bit more.”
Renfrow stranded the bases loaded after an arduous 32-pitch first inning before putting UCLA down in order in the second. He stranded four runners over his final two innings, though Dugger and Hocking put runs through in the fourth.
“Renfrow threw an awful lot of pitches for having not pitched in 16 days,” Szefc said. “You’ve got to realize, he’s not pitching against some average team; he’s pitching against one of the best teams in the country at their place.”
The Bruins received a quality start from veteran right-hander Michael Barnett, who struck out five while allowing three earned runs. He pitched six innings and began the seventh, but left after Gibson engineered a full-count, leadoff homer.
Crowl pitched the fifth and sixth innings for the Hokies, allowing Gasparino’s solo shot before Stieg entered in the seventh and pitched a 1-2-3 frame. He hit two batters in the eighth, though, giving way to Clement’s outing.
The junior needed five more outs, but only three came.
Notably, Chase Swift, who finished the year with the team’s second-best ERA (3.63) and seemed to carve out a role as a closer, did not pitch in Los Angeles. Grim was the Hokies’ last pitcher of the season, even though his Game 1 workload was significant. It is unclear if Swift is injured. He has not pitched since May 10 vs. UNC Greensboro.
Virginia Tech’s season is over, and while it did not find much success in regional play, blowing a two-run lead in its elimination game, it played the No. 1 overall seed close and made just its sixth regional since the format was established in 1999.
Considering those facts, Szefc was asked how much of a success the season was.
“That’s a tough one to answer,” he said. “Because I do believe our guys came here expecting to win. They’re not just happy to be here. I know that’s how our staff looked at it. I think finishing seventh in the ACC, getting a first-round bye in the [ACC] tournament and getting here is a great success. We probably could have played better here, obviously, and had better outcomes. It just didn’t happen that way.
“I don’t want to look at our entire season based off of two days. I think they’re disappointing two days, but I don’t think they’re a bad two days. I do think it’s a good success and a step forward for the program, as far as where we’re trying to take it in this day and age, where rosters change overnight and you have to get used to having new players in different roles, which is pretty difficult for any program or any coaching staff. But that’s what it is now. So we’ll deal with it, and we’ll move on.”
The college baseball carousel never stops. Szefc and his staff will return to Blacksburg just in time for the transfer portal to open on June 1. The MLB Draft comes after, beginning July 11.
So, there isn’t much time to ruminate on a poor Los Angeles Regional, but it’d be hard to believe the way it ended won’t be haunting for some.
Box Score: No. 1 UCLA 6, Virginia Tech 5