Fueled by last year's failure, No. 2 Hokies are ready for ACC Championship — and beyond

By Sam Alves

Staff Writer

May 25, 2022

BLACKSBURG — All along, months before No. 2 Virginia Tech could wash away the sour taste of last year’s late-season collapse, head coach John Szefc set his eyes on this week’s ACC Championship in Charlotte, N.C.

“I think we expect to go back and do way better [than last year,]” Szefc said before the season. "...I think talent-wise, it’s a talented group, it’s just a matter of them going out and playing against other people.”

Tech has done that — and then some — from Blacksburg to Charlottesville to Fenway. The Hokies (40-11, 19-9 Atlantic Coast) won their first ACC series in Chapel Hill and at Virginia this season en route to earning the No. 1 seed in the ACC Championship for the first time.

By earning the conference’s top seed, Szefc — 2022 ACC Coach of the Year — earned the privilege of selecting his team’s game days this weekend. Tech opens Pool A play against Clemson Thursday at 7 p.m. and is guaranteed one more game against North Carolina Friday at 7 p.m., giving the Hokies a full week’s rest between their last series with Duke and the start of the postseason.

By virtue of North Carolina’s 9-2 win over Clemson on Tuesday and the tournament’s pool play tiebreaker — the highest seed among the three teams in a pool advances if everyone goes 1-1 — Tech’s game with Clemson, who it didn’t face in the regular season, has no impact on its semi-final chances.

Instead, the winner between Tech and UNC will move on to the weekend. The victor will face the winning squad from Group D, comprised of No. 16 Notre Dame, No. 15 Virginia and Florida State.

“We have a lot of confidence coming in — especially this year, compared to last year,” true sophomore shortstop Tanner Schobel said. “I think last year we hit kind of a rough patch, so our confidence was a little low. I think we have so much confidence coming into this tournament, and I think we’re going to be really successful.”

Last year, despite being ranked No. 17 in the country midway through the season, the Hokies needed a big week in Charlotte to make the NCAA tournament. They didn’t have one, though, losing 3-2 to Virginia and 8-0 to Notre Dame to close the season with a whimper. But the experience from the week — and going through a full ACC season for the first time — prepared Tech’s key returners for this season’s success.

“I think last year, we were happy that we made [the ACC Championship], but we didn’t have much to play for,” third-year sophomore Gavin Cross said. “If we didn’t win the whole thing, we weren’t going to make a regional. Once we lost the first game, it was like, ‘We’re playing in a cool stadium.’ We were just there to be there.

“Obviously this year it’s a different situation. We want to go there and win. [We] know there’s more games after the [ACC] tournament. It’s great to be back again.”

Like Tech’s expectations coming into Charlotte flipped from last year to now, so too did the Hokies’ season as a whole.

“I think last year we kind of started out hot; this year was kind of the opposite," Cross said. "We obviously got swept at Georgia Tech and lost on Friday against Pitt. Just knowing that it’s a long season, knowing that you play 30 conference games…Just play hard and be with each other and stick through the grind."

Since losing to Pitt in their home ACC opener, the Hokies ripped off a 19-5 (.792) run in ACC play with two wins against Liberty (No. 40 RPI) and a top-100 RPI win over Kansas State in the last week of the season.

At No. 5 in the RPI themselves, the path to a Blacksburg Regional and Super Regional is clear, leaving Szefc with less stress this week compared to last year or compared to a team like Clemson, who D1 Baseball has as its projected last team in the field of 64.

Szefc also said he, like Tech head softball coach Pete d’Amour, values earning the best ACC regular-season record more than the ACC Championship because it represents more sustained success.

“The regular-season championship happens over the course of 11 weekends,” Szefc said. “The tournament happens over the course of five days. And I’m not saying it’s not important to go and play well and win the ACC tournament. That’s not the point. The point is that over the course of 11 weeks, you hopefully get an indicator as to the best team/teams, consistency.

“I think our guys have earned the right to be the No. 1 seed, to go down there and have a good amount of time off before they play Thursday. I’m completely confident they’ll play really well down there like they played all year long.

“Regardless of the outcome, I still really feel good about our guys in the postseason, one way or another. I think they do, too. And we’ll be absolutely prepared for Thursday, just like we’ll be absolutely prepared to play in the NCAA tournament.”

And just like they’ve been all year, Szefc’s players are in lock-step with their coach.

“The way that we do our scout meetings is, ‘It’s about us,’” Schobel said. “We know that if we play our best baseball it’s going to be hard for the other team to beat us….So I think we’re just going to stick to our preparation and go into it with a mind of, ‘We’re going to go in there and kick some butt just like we’ve been doing all season.’”