Virginia Tech baseball uses small ball & long ball to beat James Madison

Fresh off of a series win against UNC Greensboro over the weekend, the Virginia Tech baseball team returned to English Field on Wednesday for another non-conference game, this time against James Madison.

After the two teams traded runs over the first two innings, Virginia Tech used small ball and the long ball to blow the game open with two runs in the sixth and three more in the seventh to improve to 6-2 early in the season with the win over the Dukes.

Tied 2-2 in the sixth, Garrett Michel singled, went to second on a wild pitch, and was sacrificed to third. He scored when Sam Tackett went the other way with some good two-strike hitting for an RBI single to right for a 3-2 lead. Tackett stole second and scored when Henry Cooke delivered an RBI single for his first hit of the season. Cooke was just getting started.

In the bottom of the seventh and two runners on, Cooke launched a three-run home run to left field for a 7-2 lead. Tackett finished with three hits on the day to join Cooke as the only players with multiple hits of the 12 Tech had.

James Madison was held to five hits and the most impressive part of the game for coach John Szefc was the work from his bullpen. After the Dukes tallied a pair of second-inning runs, the Hokies used five different pitches to shut down the JMU offense. Marcel Kulik worked three innings and struck out five for Tech.

Virginia Tech has a quick turnaround heading to Greenville, N.C. this weekend for the Keith LeClair Classis at East Carolina. The Hokies are going to get a major step up in competition when they play Indiana State on Friday at noon and Kent State on Saturday at noon. They close out the weekend against East Carolina on Sunday at 3:30.