Hokies can't avoid series sweep against No. 21 Wake Forest

Bradley Winterling

Staff Writer

April 8, 2024

BLACKSBURG – Wake Forest first baseman Nick Kurtz hit three home runs on Sunday to propel the Demon Deacons past the Hokies, 10-4. No. 11 Virginia Tech (21-8, 10-5 ACC) was swept by No. 21 Wake Forest (21-10, 7-8 ACC) over the weekend, losing three straight after winning nine of its last 10.  

Kurtz hit five homers in the series, and has eight in his last five games. He finished Sunday hitting 4-of-4 with seven RBI’s. 

“He’s a big leaguer,” Tech head coach John Szefc said. “You got two big leaguers in that dugout. … There’s a big difference between major leaguers and minor leaguers. Those two guys–we’ll be seeing them play on TV.” 

Both teams got off to hot starts with the bats.  

In the top of the first, Wake Forest got out to a 2-0 lead with the first homer from Kurtz. Marek Houston scored after notching a leadoff single.  

Tech answered in the bottom of the frame.  

With runners on first and second with two outs, lefty Ben Watson knocked a single into right field. The ball got past the outfielder and rolled to the warning track. DeMartini scored from second, and Micheletti was able to score from first, tying it the game at two.  

“I think the approach has been the same,” Watson said. “You’re just trying to see something over the plate, and I know my strength is going the other way. So that’s what I’ve tried to work towards, and I think I just saw some pitches there and was happy to take a few good swings on them.” 

Tech’s starter Griffin Stieg got taken out in the third after giving up another homer to Kurtz — a three-run bomb that gave the Deacons a 5-2 lead.  

Stieg pitched 2⅓ innings, giving up five hits and five earned runs.  

“He didn’t command the zone,” Coach Szefc said. “Left balls up in the zone and that was the end of that, and it was pretty quick because of that. Now you can’t leave balls over the middle of the plate or have them up in the zone to these guys — that’s a whole different type of lineup over there.” 

The Hokies were able to chip away from time to time, with one run in the fourth inning and one in the sixth, but weren’t able to keep up with the Wake Forest offense. Tech could never truly get the offense going all weekend against the preseason No. 1 ranked team.  

“I think they were mixing it up a little bit more than other teams have in the past,” Watson said. “I think that was more of just an ‘us’ thing though. We all know how to spin on pitches. I think everyone got a little jumpy at times, maybe [trying] to do too much.” 

The Deacons scored on a groundout in the fifth, and then scored four runs in the final three innings, shutting the door on a potential Hokie comeback.  

Tech faces off against Liberty (15-16, 7-2 CUSA) on Wednesday night (6 p.m. EST, ACCNX) at English Field, and then travels to Atlanta to take on Georgia Tech (19-11, 5-7) in a three-game series next weekend.  

“There’s a lot of ups and downs in this league,” Szefc said. “It’s just a matter of weathering the storm. These guys got swept last weekend–I don’t know how the hell that ever happened, but they did. …  

“We just have to weather it and come back and be in a better place next weekend. If we can do that, we’ll be fine. If we can’t, we won’t be fine. … It’s easy to handle it when it’s good, which we’ve done. But now we’ll see how we handle it when it’s bad.”