Irish lose fifth straight ACC series against Virginia Tech
For the second consecutive weekend, Notre Dame baseball put itself in position to win an Atlantic Coast Conference series at home but couldn't finish the job. After dropping both ends of a Sunday doubleheader last week against Florida State, the Irish lost on Saturday and Sunday against Virginia Tech despite defeating the Hokies by a 7-2 score on Friday.
Notre Dame now stands just a game above .500 at 15-14 overall and 3-12 within ACC play with its five-week gauntlet schedule now over with. Virginia Tech, meanwhile, improved to 22-10 overall and 9-6 within the ACC thanks to the series win in South Bend.
Friday: Virginia Tech 2, Notre Dame 7
The Irish captured Friday's game with an outstanding starting pitching performance from sophomore right-hander Jack Radel. He threw a career-long seven innings on 104 pitches, allowing only two runs on three hits and three walks while striking out five to earn the win. Graduate right-hander Tobey McDonough finished the game with two scoreless frames out of the bullpen.
Though the Hokies started the scoring with a homer from Jackson Cherry to the left in the second, Notre Dame plated a run in each of the following two half-innings to claim a 2-1 lead. Junior shortstop Estevan Moreno came home after a leadoff double in the second before driving in another run with a fielder's choice in the third.
Although they tied the game at 2-2 in the fifth, the Hokies had problems from the third inning on. Offensively, Virginia Tech collected only one hit in the final six innings of the game, as Radel set down nine batters in a row to finish his outing. On the opposite side, Hokie starting pitcher and ace Brett Renfrow inexplicably departed the game after pitching only three innings, leaving a long day ahead for the Hokie bullpen.
Notre Dame would attack that bullpen for five runs across the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. The eventual game-winning run scored on one of three Hokie errors in the first of those three innings. Notre Dame's freshmen then padded the lead in the sixth, as left fielder Jayce Lee and first baseman Parker Brzustewicz each struck run-producing singles. Sophomore catcher Carson Tinney topped off the 7-2 Irish win with a left field-bound bullet of a two-run home run in the seventh, his fifth long ball of the season.
Saturday: Virginia Tech 6, Notre Dame 1
In game two, it was Virginia Tech's turn to ride an elite start on the mound. Hokie freshman southpaw Jake Marciano spun 6.2 innings without an earned run allowed, walking only one and punching out nine on 116 pitches for the best start of his young career. Though the Hokies didn't score in seven of the game's nine innings, they did enough to win with three-run bunches in the third and ninth frames.
Virginia Tech's first clump of runs chased Irish sophomore starter DJ Helwig, who was making his first career ACC start, from the ballgame. Hokie freshman Hudson Lutterman laced a two-run double down the line in left, building a 3-0 Virginia Tech lead at the end of the inning.
Notre Dame's bullpen performed well from there to remain within striking distance. Graduate right-handers Sammy Cooper and Dylan Heine combined with freshman righty Oisin Lee to shut out the Hokies for five straight innings, affording the Irish offense plenty of time to tie or take the lead. However, Notre Dame did neither, scoring only once in the fifth thanks to a Hokie error and an RBI infield single from graduate center fielder Jared Zimbardo.
Virginia Tech would eventually put the game out of reach in the ninth as Lee lost some steam. The redshirt senior star Hokie outfielder Sam Tackett with two outs, putting two runners on for Cherry. Having already been on base three times, the designated hitter blew the game open with a three-run moonshot that barely cleared the fence in right-center field, shifting the Hokies into a 6-1 lead. Virginia Tech reliever Grant Manning would work around a leadoff walk in the bottom of the ninth to level the series.
Sunday: Virginia Tech 11, Notre Dame 5
Like last Sunday, this weekend's rubber match wasn't competitive for very long. The Hokies jumped on Notre Dame best starting pitcher, junior right-hander Rory Fox, for three runs in both the third and fourth innings, as Jared Davis and Ben Watson each cleared the bases with a double. They would tag Irish graduate starter-turned-reliever Jackson Dennies for five more runs between the fifth and sixth innings, constructing leads of 10-0 and 11-2.
Notre Dame took a while to crack the Logan Eisenreich code at the plate, as the freshman Hokie pitcher struck out seven in 4.1 innings of one-run baseball. The Irish scored one of their two fifth-inning runs against him, as senior third baseman Nick DeMarco belted a two-run home run. They would score an additional three runs between the fifth and eighth innings, while sophomore Justin Mayes Jr., junior Xavier Hirsch and sophomore Keenan Mork combined to toss 3.1 scoreless innings as the last three out of the Notre Dame bullpen.
Both teams finished the day with double digits in the hit column, Virginia Tech producing 12 and Notre Dame 10. Davis and Watson shined atop the batting order for the Hokies, going a combined 5 for 11 with eight runs batted in. Eight of Notre Dame's nine starters recorded a hit, with Tinney leading the charge on a 3-for-4 day.
The Irish will wrap up their 13-game homestand with a 5:30 p.m. Tuesday matchup against regional foe Northwestern. The Big Ten-based Wildcats are 14-15 overall with a 6-6 mark in conference play. They lost this past weekend's series to Iowa but salvaged a 5-4 victory on Sunday. A below-average team both on offense and the mound, Northwestern follows the lead of junior infielder Trent Liolios. He paces the Wildcats by a wide margin in batting average (.337), home runs (14), slugging percentage (.837) and OPS (1.258).
