Virginia Tech baseball & softball have disastrous weekends on the road

It was a tough weekend for both the Virginia Tech baseball and softball teams away from Blacksburg. Both teams dropped two out of three in their weekend series with the softball likely suffering the most devasting weekend of the two.

Virginia Tech softball drops 2-out-of-3 at Syracuse

Entering the weekend, the Hokies softball team, ranked 15th, was hoping to make their case to be a Regional host in the NCAA Tournament that begins in a couple of weeks. Syracuse, which is in the bottom half of the conference standings, had other ideas.

The Orange took two out of three from Virginia Tech, winning the first game Friday, 2-1, before the Hokies rallied for a 7-3 victory on Saturday in eight innings. Syracuse won the series Sunday with a 6-2 win to likely end Tech's hopes of being a host in the NCAA Tournament.

In the win Saturday, Virginia Tech plated four runs in the top of the eighth with Cori McMillan doing the big damage with a three-run home run, while Teagan Thrunk drove in the other run on an RBI ground out. The home run for McMillan was her 20th and broke the school record for homers in a season.

Surprisingly the Orange were able to to tame Virginia Tech's hot bats and now the Hokies will play three non-conference games to close out the regular season. They will travel to Liberty on Wednesday, then host Robert Morris for a doubleheader next Saturday. The ACC Tournament will be May 8-11 at Duke.

Baseball drops 2-out-of-3 at North Carolina

For the fourth straight weekend, it was a lost weekend in the ACC for the Hokies baseball team. They dropped two out of three at No. 7 North Carolina, avoiding the sweep Sunday with a 4-3 victory.

After dropping the opener 8-1 Friday and then falling 6-3 Saturday, Virginia Tech avoided the sweep with a true team win Sunday afternoon and it broke a 14-game home ACC winning streak for the Tar Heels. Tech starter Griffin Stieg, who has been good this season, left the game in the bottom of the first inning after throwing just three pitches.The Hokies patched worked nine innings to avoid the sweep.

Jacob Exum worked three innings, and Brady Kirtner worked 4.1 innings allowing just three hits, one run, a walk, and five strikeouts to improve to 7-0. Jordan Little got the final five outs allowing just a a hit and striking out two.

Offensively, Ben Watson had a solo home run and Clay Grady added a two-run shot, while Chris Cannizzaro drove in the final run with an RBI single in the fifth.

Virginia Tech, which improved to 27-14 overall and 13-11 in the ACC, will now get a two week break from conference play. They will host North Carolina A&T Wednesday, then host Ohio next weekd for three games with a doubleheader Saturday and a single game Sunday. They return to ACC action from May10-12 when they host Miami.