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TOPICS: baseball pete hughes michael seaborn andrew rash joe mantiply joe parsons acc tournament
For coach Pete Hughes and the Virginia Tech baseball team, this weekend represented the highs and lows of Atlantic Coast Conference baseball.
The Hokies dropped the weekend series to the Florida State Seminoles two games to one, losing on Saturday and Sunday.
On Friday night, the Hokies got a great pitching performance from starter Joe Mantiply in a 2-1 win. Tech scratched across two runs in the bottom half of the third off Florida State ace Sean Gilmartin, and the Hokies bullpen tandem of Manny Martir and Jake Atwell closed the door.
“You got a guy like Joe Mantiply and a guy like Gilmartin, those are two good ones in the ACC,” said Andrew Rash, Hokies left fielder. “They’re going to do what they have to do to throw strikes and keep their clubs in the ballgame.”
Rash finished the series six for 13 with two home runs and retained his ACC home run lead, as he now stands at 13. Rash attributes his 2011 success to not trying to do too much.
“I’m just trying to stay within myself,” Rash said. “Coach (Hughes) stays on top of me to stay within myself — do the little things.”
After the pitchers’ duel Friday evening, the bats for both teams warmed up on Saturday and Sunday. A combined 56 runs were scored on the two days.
“Offensively I thought we played really good,” Hughes said. “Offensively I feel great where our team’s at, but there are a lot of different phases to this game.”
Saturday, the Hokies built an 11-7 lead heading into the sixth inning, highlighted by a Ronnie Shaban grand slam in the fourth inning. The lead would not hold however, as the Hokies bullpen struggled to contain the Seminoles’ bats on a cold, windy evening.
Florida State broke through in the top of the seventh on a Sherman Johnson RBI single to take a 12-11 lead. The Seminoles would only build on that lead as the Hokies bullpen allowed eight runs in five and a third innings, and Tech would eventually fall 15-11.
“You had extreme offensive conditions with the wind blowing out, so no lead was safe,” Hughes said. “Our bullpen didn’t throw enough strikes.
“It’s aggravating,” he said. “When you have a team on the ropes like we did, and you’re that close to winning a series, a series we needed to win, we just didn’t do a good enough job pitching.”
A version of this article appeared in the Apr 19 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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