Hokies smash hammer five times, Wright State in rubber-match win

By Sam Alves

Staff Writer

March 6, 2022

BLACKSBURG — Virginia Tech’s signature home run hammer was out early and often Sunday.

It was slammed five times, and paired with Drue Hackenberg’s quality start, the Hokies (9-1) beat Wright State (1-8) in Sunday’s rubber match, 17-1, their best effort of the season, according to head coach John Szefc.

“[We] got a lot of contributions,” Szefc said. “We only had two guys with three hits. It was a lot of multi-hit games. Just a lot of contributions from a lot of different guys. The best part about it was coming out on a Sunday when we needed a good performance to win a series at home after you kind of got kicked in the teeth on Friday, and guys came out and were really productive on Sunday.”

Gavin Cross opened the scoring with his first home run of the season, a fly ball to left that kept carrying with enough juice to clear the wall and escaped left fielder Andrew Patrick’s glove. Two batters later, Eduardo Malinowski lined a homer to the opposite field, his sixth in seven games and seventh of the season, doubling Tech’s lead in the first inning.

By game’s end, Jack Hurley, Conor Hartigan and Lucas Donlon each homered. Donlon became the 10^th Hokie to homer through 10 games this season.

Cross — who led the Hokies with 11 home runs last season — Hartigan and Donlon recorded their first homers of the season.

“I was talking to Hartigan before the game, and we both didn’t have any homers, so we were like, ‘Hey, let’s get our first homers today,’” Cross said. “[We were] just messing around. And then it happened, so it was cool.”

Between his homer in the fourth and Malinowski’s in the first, Hurley singled with two outs and Tech leading 2-0. Though he didn’t score, the knock did extend his season-opening hitting streak to 10 games, one that has powered the maroon and orange to a hot start thanks in part to his hot bat in the middle of the order.

How surprising has Tech’s 9-1 start been to Hurley?

“I’d believe we’d be 9-1 [to start the season] before I’d believe [I would have a 10-game winning streak,]” he said with a laugh.

After a two-run first, the Hokies and Raiders went five frames without a score.

But then the Hokies erupted for eight runs with two outs in the fourth, capped by Hurley’s 408-foot, two-run homer to center in his second at-bat of the inning. DeMartini, who along with Hurley had three hits, singled in a run. So, too, did Cross and Tanner Schobel. Biddison and Malinowski added extra-base-hit RBIs to balance the onslaught.

The monster fourth inning eased the pressure on Hackenberg, who faced his toughest competition and the most pressure in his third career collegiate start.

That didn’t faze him, though. The righty pumped in 59 strikes over 73 pitches, allowing just five hits, a seventh-inning homer and no walks while striking out six. It was his longest start by innings of the year — because of his efficiency, rather than intention coming into the game, per Szefc.

“To me, outside of the amount of strikes he threw, the most impressive thing was the fact that he had a couple long sits there,” Szefc said of his starter’s performance. “We scored eight runs after two outs in the fourth and he’s gotta sit there for a while. He did that twice and came right back out and was strike, strike, strike.

Szefc was especially high on Hackenberg’s sinker, demonstrating the pitch’s movement — about one foot — with his hands.

“He’s a pretty easy arm,” Szefc continued. “He can do things with the ball that are really difficult to teach guys to do. It’s a blessing that he’s with us.”

On the other end of the batter, catcher Gehrig Ebel recorded his first two hits of the year. Firethrowing Tyler Dean worked a scoreless eighth despite some traffic on the basepaths, and righty Ryan Metz finished the deal in the ninth.

“That’s my boy right there, little T-Drizz,” Hackenberg said. “It’s good to see him get back out there and have a good outing.”

The Hokies will need the freshmen duo of Hackenberg and Dean to contribute as they did Sunday as the competition picks up. And it does quick, with East Carolina coming to town before VT heads to Atlanta for next weekend’s ACC opener at No. 18 Georgia Tech.