Virginia Tech baseball facing massive ACC series vs. Wake Forest

Through the first four ACC weekend series’, things have gone very well for the 11th-ranked Virginia Tech baseball team. The Hokies are off to a 10-2 start in the conference, sweeping Notre Dame and Boston College while taking two out of three against Louisville and Pittsburgh. It hasn’t been a monster conference schedule for Tech out of the gate, however, things will be a lot more interesting beginning this weekend.

At 21-5 overall, Virginia Tech will welcome 21st-ranked Wake Forest to Blacksburg this weekend for a huge three-game series beginning Friday night. This is the first big ACC challenge for the Hokies who will have had six days off in between games after their game this week at Marshall was postponed due to the weather in Huntington, West Virginia. 

Last weekend the Hokies struggled with Pittsburgh at home winning two out of three with the most impressive win coming in the series final Saturday afternoon. A team that has been mashing the ball early in the season and hitting the ball out of the ballpark daily used some small ball to edge the Panthers and they caught them by surprise with it. 

Trailing 5-4 entering the bottom of the eighth inning, Virginia Tech loaded the bases and plated two runs on a pair of bunts. Ethan Gibson dropped a perfect bunt down to score Gehrig Ebel, then Carson DeMartini and his 14 home runs stepped to the plate and also dropped down a successful bunt to score Ethan Gibson with the game-winning run. Mike Rooney of ESPN who was the analyst on ACC Network for the game took notice of how Virginia Tech plated the two runs, especially DeMartini.

Combining pitching and defense this season, things have gone very well for the Hokies through the first seven weeks of the season. Their pitching has been much better than expected and they have far exceeded expectations set at the beginning of the season where they were picked for last place in the ACC Coastal Division. Wake Forest was swept at home last weekend, but they began the season as the No. 1 ranked team in the country after a trip to the College World Series last spring and they return some key pieces. Regardless, this is a big weekend for the Hokies, and taking two out of three would give them some momentum going forward for the second half of the season.