Collegiate Times

Marc Zecchino pitches the ball to Seth Baldwin, UNC 16.

The Virginia Tech baseball team may have finally gotten the monkey off its back with its first ACC victory on Sunday, but the three-game series against Boston College was still a disappointment.

Sunday’s 8-1 victory could turn out to be an important breakthrough, but it was also necessary to avoid being swept by yet another conference opponent, as Boston College had taken both of the previous two games in the series.

In what has become the Hokies’ Achilles heel, they let the Eagles take an early lead in the first with a two-run home run off of starter Joe Mantiply. Boston College added one in the third inning and then two more in the eight to stretch the lead to 5-0.

Before the ninth inning, Tech’s offense was completely absent. In fact, the Hokies didn’t get a hit until the seventh inning.

However, the ninth was friendly to the Hokies, as the offense finally woke up.

Tech managed to pull together a string of hits by Ronnie Shaban, Tim Smalling and Andrew Rash to bring in its first run of the ball game. Tech went on to score two more, but the Eagles’ five-run cushion was too much to overcome and the Hokies fell 5-3.

The following day, Tech broke its cycle of getting behind early by scoring a quick run in the first thanks to classic run manufacturing.

After Tony Balisteri walked to start the game, a stolen base and a wild pitch brought him to third. Smalling then drove him home with a sacrifice fly.

It wasn’t pretty, and didn’t even involve a hit, but the Hokies were on the board first.

That lead would last until the fifth inning, where Hokies pitcher Marc Zecchino saw his only trouble of the day. With the bases loaded and two out, Zecchino gave up a single that brought two runners home for Boston College.

It was the only mistake Zecchino made all day, but it was all Boston College needed. The Eagles kept the Hokies scoreless for the final eight innings and took the game 2-1.

Tech managed just two hits the entire game — bringing their total to just seven hits through the first two games.

Desperate to avoid a sweep in their final game, the Hokies came right out of the gate with an offense they hadn’t shown for weeks.

Shaban brought Balisteri home with the Hokies’ first extra base hit of the series and the team’s first run. In his next at bat, Shaban brought home Balisteri again, but did so with a triple this time.

The Shaban triple started a three-run third inning and the Hokies lead was 4-0.

With Joe Parsons dominating on the mound, the four runs to start the game were all the Hokies would need. Parsons went eight strong innings, giving up just one run on three hits.

By the time his day was done, Tech was sitting on a comfortable 8-1 lead with just three more outs left.

Fittingly enough, Shaban came in to pitch the final inning and close what his bat had started in the first.

After finishing their four-game road trip at Liberty and Boston College, the Hokies will return home for their next game on Tuesday against Radford. Tech will also host a three-game series against No. 3 Virginia this weekend.

A version of this article appeared in the Mar 29 issue of the Collegiate Times.