Needing a miracle run through the ACC Baseball Championship to secure an NCAA bid, Virginia Tech dropped a disappointing second round game to Clemson 6-1 on Wednesday afternoon in Durham. A solid pitching outing by sophomore Brett Renfrow wasn't enough to overcome opportunistic hitting by the Tigers and a largely toothless Tech offense.
The game started well enough for the 12-seed Hokies as Ben Watson led things off with a homer to right to stake them to a 1-0 lead. Unfortunately for Tech, the Tigers answered with three in the bottom of the frame on a Renfrow wild pitch and a two-out, two-run bomb by Dominic Listi.
Clemson extended their lead on a Listi two-run double in the fifth and tacked on another in the sixth on a sacrifice fly by Cam Cannarella.
The Tigers’ pitching cruised for most of the game. After Watson’s solo bomb to start things off, Tech only managed three singles the rest of the way and never really threatened.
Overall, Renfrow pitched pretty well for Tech, striking out 10 and walking just two in 5 1/3 innings, but he gave up four of his six runs with two outs. It was ultimately a hole too large for the Hokies’ bats to dig out from on this day.
At 31-25, Tech’s season is likely over, and they’ll once again have to examine a season that was showing promise but flagged down the stretch. The Hokies started the season 23-10, but dropped to just 8-15 in their last 23 games.
The 5-seed Tigers will play 4-seed NC State Thursday at 7pm EDT in the ACC Quarterfinals.