Hokies nearly complete the shutout in 7-1 win vs Radford

By Josh Collier

Staff Writer

April 17, 2024

BLACKSBURG — No. 23 Virginia Tech (24-10, 11-7 ACC) held Radford (10-23) scoreless through the first eight innings in its 7-1 home victory on Tuesday.

Although it wasn’t quite a shutout, the 7-1 win marks the fewest number of runs allowed by the Tech pitching staff in a home game this season. It also only gave up four hits — the second lowest it’s allowed in a game at home.  

“It's a really big confidence boost,” Virginia Tech pitcher Grant Manning said on the team’s pitching performance Tuesday. “It was huge for us to be able to hit the reset button and come out here and deliver from top to bottom, from starter to closer.” 

The Hokies allowed 30 total runs in their two previous games during a rough weekend series against Georgia Tech, making this reset much needed. 

Manning saw the most time on the mound out of all Tech pitchers during this Radford matchup. Through three innings, he recorded three strikeouts and only allowed one hit. 

Prior to Manning in this game were Madden Clement, Brady Kirtner (W, 5-0) and David Shoemaker, who pitched two strikeouts each across the first four innings. The true freshman, Clement, made his second consecutive midweek start. 

“I think eventually he [Clement] should be able to be a weekend starter,” Tech head coach John Szefc said postgame. 

The final two innings for the Hokies were pitched by Matthew Siverling and Wyatt Parliament. In his first relief appearance of the year Parliament allowed the only run of the game from the Highlanders. He cleaned up quickly after that, though, retiring the next two batters, throwing a personal record 97 mph fastball and closing out the game.  

“Earlier on in the year, there were talks about him [Parliament] being a closer, so getting a sneak peak of that was pretty awesome,” Manning said. “It’s a huge reset button for him; big confidence boost.” 

On the batting side for the Hokies, it was a big day for Chris Cannizzaro, who recorded three RBIs and one home run in four plate appearances. The home run came in the fifth inning on a 2 RBI play shortly before Henry Cooke — just two batters after — homered one of his own down the right field line. 

Virginia Tech is slated to host No. 7 Duke beginning on Friday for their seventh-straight ACC weekend. Based off what Coach Szefc and the team saw last weekend, there should be some changes on the way. 

“We'll make some adjustments going into this weekend,” Szefc said. “The Georgia Tech weekend gave us a little bit more information, being the sixth ACC weekend. So we'll make a lot of decisions tomorrow based off of that weekend and what we saw tonight.”