hokies find wind in their sails with 12-0 win over bucs

Sam Alves

April 27, 2021

BLACKSBURG — Virginia Tech needed to right the ship after suffering its first sweep of the season against NC State this past weekend. It found a familiar foe in East Tennessee State — already all too familiar with the Hokies’ offensive firepower — and one-upped its 15-5 road victory on April 6 with a dominant effort against the Buccaneers, winning 12-0.

“It was good bouncing back today,” Kevin Madden said postgame. “Our offense showed what we could do. We were seeing some velo tonight. We put some good at-bats together and scored a bunch of runs. It was fun.”

No, Gavin Cross didn’t hit for the cycle. His ho-hum 3-for-4, two-RBI, one-run outing with a steal to boot wasn’t even the finest performance of the night for the Hokies (21-11, 15-12 ACC).

That distinction belongs to Madden, who also batted 3-for-4 with a run and a steal, but he knocked in a game-high four runs. And before that, he started a 5-4-3 double play to clear Ashton King off the bases after beginning the game with a leadoff single .

“That’s big,” Madden said of the play. “Usually, the toughest inning for the starting pitcher is the first. You get a leadoff guy on with nobody out, I think like 70% of the time, that guy’s gonna score. So it was big, getting that double play and getting [the third] out after that and getting the bats hot.”

The offense wasn’t hot enough to send any cannonballs beyond the wall, but it did enough for seven hitters to send runners home in one of the Hokies’ more complete offensive performances this year.

The Buccaneers (18-18, 8-9 SoCon) didn’t walk (the plank) once, either, as Ryan Okuda, Griffin Green, Samuel Rochard and Grant Umberger combined to strike out six batters, while allowing only six hits over nine innings.

“Just the fact that we played an error free game, didn’t walk a batter, I can’t talk about that enough,” head coach John Szefc said of the night’s younger pitching staff that sent the Buccaneers home empty-handed. “I feel like all I talk about is free bases, free bases, free bases. To come out and play clean baseball tonight was good for our guys, for sure.”

Tanner Thomas opened the scoring with a flair shot to right field to score Madden in the third.

Leading by a slim 1-0 margin for the next inning-and-a-half, the Hokies broke the game open with a six-run fifth inning.

Thomas, Gehrig Ebel and Nick Biddison all walked to start the frame, so up came Cross, relieved to see a teammate — or three on base — after all of his plate appearances at NC State over the weekend came with the bags clear.

“Yeah, it was fun just seeing guys on base,” Cross said of his at-bat that resulted in a two-RBI double. “Anytime you hit with guys on, not that you’re more locked in, just there’s more holes open. I hit into the shift a couple times this weekend.”

“I hit the ball well, I just didn’t have the numbers that I had because I hit into the shift and they had really good defense against me. But yeah, for sure, any time you can hit with guys on, you want to do that.”

Later in the inning, TJ Rumfield added an RBI, Madden scored two more with a single up the middle, and Thomas came to the plate with runners on the corners –– Nick Biddison at first and Jack Hurley at third.

Biddison intentionally ran into a rundown to try and allow Hurley time to score. ETSU catcher Noah Webb’s throw to second was well off, and covering shortstop Ashton King couldn’t hold on to the throw, allowing Hurley to score easily. Biddison was then accidentally caught in a rundown ending the inning.

Madden plated two more with a double that snuck fair down the left-field line in the seventh. And later in the frame, Ebel doubled, Biddison tripled and Nick Holesa singled in the eighth, each driving in a run apieceto wrap up the scoring.

“[Biddison] missed the first 24 games, so you’re still not really seeing — in my opinion — the experienced Nick Biddision,” Szefc said of his leadoff hitter. “I think you will, we’re just not quite seeing it yet. It’s coming. It’s kind of like it’s on the highway. It just has to get on the exit and get to the ballpark, but it’s on the way”

Also on the way is a duel with the Commonwealth foe Virginia this weekend. Games, like Szefc’s analogy to Biddison’s early slump, will be played in the ballpark right off Route 460.