The Virginia Tech baseball team received its first NCAA regional berth since 2000, garnering the No. 2 seed in the Columbia, S.C. regional beginning this Friday.
Tech (38-20, 16-14 Atlantic Coast Conference) is joined by the No. 1 seed, the University of South Carolina (43-15, 21-9 Southeastern Conference), as well as The Citadel (42-20, 24-6 Southern Conference) at No. 3 and Bucknell (25-33, 8-12 Patriot League) at No. 4.
After getting swept by North Carolina in the last week of the regular season at Chapel Hill, the Hokies went 2-1 during pool play and narrowly missed a chance to play in the championship game against Florida State due to an extra inning loss to North Carolina State.
The Hokies open the regional versus The Citadel Bulldogs and will start junior lefty Justin Wright who pitched a complete game with 15 strikeouts against the nationally-seeded Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the ACC Tournament.
Head coach Pete Hughes had originally decided to go with sophomore right-hander Mathew Price Tuesday morning but changed his mind the same afternoon and decided on Wright. Hughes determined that the Bulldogs’ aggressive base-stealing and bunting would be too risky for Price to deal with despite the Bulldogs featuring eight right-handed hitters in their starting lineup which would generally provide an advantage for a right-handed pitcher.
“(Wright) does a good job controlling the running game and he fields his position very well, so I think he’ll match up good against the Citadel,” Hughes said. “Lately lefties and righties haven’t been hitting him, so hopefully he can pitch well and do it again.”
Keeping the running game of the Bulldogs in check and playing solid defense will be key since they will keep the pressure on the Hokies all day to make mistakes in the field after some shaky defense in recent weeks.
Tech committed five errors in the loss against NC State and four in a narrow win over Clemson last weekend, and the Hokies have not had an errorless game since May 9 against Savannah State.
All five of The Citadel’s first five hitters have stolen at least 15 bags, and three of them nabbed at least 22 over the course of the season.
The Bulldogs led the SoCon in stolen bases and sacrifice bunts, and since they lack the power to score in bunches like many ACC teams, they will try to manufacture runs each inning one at a time with steals and sacrifices.
Starting Price on Friday would have allowed the Hokies to potentially pitch their top pitcher, Wright, against the top-seeded Gamecocks on Saturday provided both teams win their opening round games.
Instead, Price will pitch on Saturday followed by junior Jesse Hahn, who has struggled in his last three starts since missing appearances against Georgia Tech and Boston College late in the regular season.
A big factor in Hahn’s improvement this season was lowering his velocity for improved control, but he has gone back to his old ways of overthrowing since returning to the starting rotation.
A version of this article appeared in the Jun 3 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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