Virginia Tech baseball posts ACC program record win over Duke on the road

After dropping their last two ACC series at home, a sweep by Florida State and North Carolina winning two out of three games, the Virginia Tech baseball team kicked off a three-game weekend series at Duke with an 11-inning loss on Friday night, 6-3, when AJ Garcia blasted a walk-off three-run homer.

To add insult to injury on Saturday afternoon, the Blue Devils put up six runs in the bottom of the first inning and then added one more in the third for a 7-0 lead before the skies opened and a rain delay ensued. Following the delay, things changed big time.

Once play resumed, the Hokies scored five runs in the fifth inning to cut the deficit to 7-5, then took the lead with three runs in the sixth before Duke tied the game in the bottom of the eighth with a run at 8-8. That's the way things stayed until Virginia Tech plated a run in the top of the 11th to win by a run and even the series, setting up the rubber match on Sunday afternoon. The win was a program record for rallying from a deficit for an ACC victory.

Henry Cooke highlighted the five-run fifth inning with a three-run home run, while Ben Watson scored on a wild pitch and Clay Grady had an RBI ground out. In the sixth, Hudson Lutterman had a solo home run, and Cooke had his second of the game later in the inning, a two-run shot for an 8-7 lead. Duke tied the game in the bottom of the eighth inning before the Hokies won the game in the top of the 11th on a Ben Watson sac-fly that scored Grady.

Grant Manning was the winning pitcher out of the Hokies' bullpen, going 4.2 innings, allowing two hits, one run, walking two, and striking out nine. Virginia Tech improved to 27-16 overall and 11-12 in the ACC with the series rubber match coming on Sunday at 3 o'clock.