Virginia Tech baseball opens ACC Tournament in an all to familiar fashion vs. Duke

The Virginia Tech baseball team kicked off Pool Play at the ACC Tournament Tuesday night needing to make a statement in their Pool C games against Duke and North Carolina State to get on the right side of the NCAA Tournament field. Just as the last nearly two months have gone for the Hokies, it was more frustration after a promising start.

The Hokes jumped out a 5-0 second-inning lead, but as has been the case in their last six ACC series, pitching let them down in an 11-8 loss to the Blue Devils that shut the door on their NCAA Tournament hopes.

Virginia Tech pitching suffers another meltdown

It couldn’t have started any better for the Hokies with a five-spot in the second inning after four consecutive walks gave Tech a 1-0 lead. After a sacrifice fly by David McCann, who just missed a grand slam, gave them a 2-0 lead before Carson DeMartini launched a three-run homer for a 5-0 advantage. Then everything fell apart.

Duke put up a six-run bottom of the third, then tacked on three more runs, two more on Zac Morris’ second homer of the game. Virginia Tech cut the deficit to 9-6 with a Ben Watson sac-fly before the Blue Devils answered with two more runs for an 11-6 and McCann closed the scoring with a two-run homer in the eighth.

It was another night where the offense put up a crooked number, but the pitching fell apart and now the Hokies must beat North Carolina State Wednesday night to have a glimmer of hope of advancing to the weekend or their season will be over and a long offseason in Blacksburg begins.