factors that once allowed teams to overachieve have been minimized.

pack assessment of our current athletics department.....I do think in this case, baseball substantially exceeded expectations (more on this later in the post). And yes, Carolina is a better team top to bottom. And a legit National Title contender. I would also say, they had to use pitchers 1A and 1B today to beat us, and this was a tournament where we never used our best arm. Today was what I would call a "3 play game." And I never ever call out individual players in college (on message boards) and some on this board don't believe in that concept, unfortunately. Because of that, I won't name the two plays. The third play was a play Carolina made at a key moment that kept them in the game. In our case, the other two cost us six runs. I made a post on the Subscribers Board earlier in the week when someone asked about our baseball NIL relative to UVA. Not going to get into that in a public forum other than to say Szefc raises all of the NIL money himself. So, here is a plug as to help baseball with NIL. Anyone can go to The Hokie Way and direct the donation be used for baseball. Then let baseball know you have done that (email the director of baseball ops). That is how anyone can help. I have seen some references of we need to keep "player x and player y" Well, that is how we can make an impact there. Back to the initial response to your post (which is very fair) and this was addressed in my earlier this week post on the subscriber board. Baseball had 17 scholarships this year. 17. Carolina (along with Clemson from last weekend) had 34 scholarships this year. 34. So, when you have literally half of the scholarships as today's opponent, and you have one hand tied behind your back, baseball feels like a substantial overachievement. NINE schools in the league had between 25-34 scholarships. Again we had 17. Fortunately our kids worked very hard and our staff did a great job of putting us in the best possible positions to win (as much as any staff can control). It took a little while to get going this year, but they got going. We do have some good talent (and we have some holes). We are just not as deep and that is where the scholarships difference makes a huge impact. We are increasing our scholarship number next year. That is very good news. This is a very good group of guys that want to do well. They are easy to root for. Again, some on this board run to post some pathetic "stuff" about some of these guys at the first sign of trouble. Some of our players have been asked to play out of position (for the good of the team) and yet we have competed at a high level in the ACC's best sport (top to bottom). Those that continually moan and groan have no idea what we had to work with this year financially. It is quite an accomplishment that we are in a position to be selected for the NCAA tournament and we finished in 7th place by ourselves. Each sport at VT has a different benchmark they are measured against with respect to what is considered a successful season. Again, your post (on the whole) is pretty accurate. Baseball is one sport this year at VT that had a very good year relative to expectations! Monday should bring good news for this program!

I’ve been torn on Szefc. Questionable in game decisions (when he changes pitchers and the often ridiculous challenges that are untimely and often fail) Credit to him goes in roster management and construction especially under the circumstances you mentioned. The ability he has to find competitive players via transfer from lower levels as well as developing under-recruited guys (Gibson) who want to be Hokies

the House settlement) is able to have scholarships up to each respective sport's roster limits. Baseball's roster limit is 34 and that is how they have the ability to have up to 34 scholarships. Many (most) schools can't fund the full 34. But some do (or prioritize this sport over others and choose to fund these amounts). ** Edited by VTScoop at 5/22/2026, 10:20:04 PM

I put mine to the different pledges

After the softball team was eliminated by LSU, I got pummeled for saying the team had a good year but not a great year. I thought about it for a while and figured that the definitions of "good" and "great" have changed since we became mediocre in football. IMHO, the only sport where we were "great" this year was wrestling - took home the conference title again. Softball was close to my definition of greatness but they lost in the ACC championship game and really weren't competitive against LSU in the two games against them. It was a nice year, a good year but IMHO, not a great year. I look at "great" as winning a conference championship or a regional OR if a team has been in the doldrums and turns it around - e.g. if the football team finishes 8-4 this upcoming year, then I will consider it a great year when you take into account how bad we were last year. But if we finish 8-4 this year and 8-4 in 2027, then 2027 will not be a great year but will be a good year. Bottom line is in most cases, greatness means taking home hardware while good means you had a winning season. At least, that's the way I look at it.