seniors offer few bright spots of revealing season-ending shutout

Sam Alves

May 26, 2021

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A once-promising season ended with an emphatic dud for Virginia Tech on Wednesday.

Playing for pride and some good memories, the Hokies managed four hits as a team — matching Notre Dame’s No. 9 hitter, Zack Prajner, individually — as No. 7 Notre Dame blanked Tech for the second time in five days.

Prajner’s fifth-inning run won the game for the Fighting Irish, whose 8-0 victory still leaves them with a winner-moves-on Pool A matchup with Virginia Friday.

“Just really frustrating, man,” John Szefc said. “A tough way to end the season.”

Once again, Tech’s bats were quiet. Senior Tanner Thomas notched his team’s only extra-base hit with two outs in the ninth inning. He received a nice sendoff from the sparse Truist Field crowd and love from his teammates walking off the field with Jack Hurley pinch running for him.

Righty Anthony Simonelli started on four day’s rest and lasted just one inning, striking out three batters swinging with a walk on 16 pitches.

“[Simonelli] was on short rest [and] he wasn’t feeling all that well either, to be honest with you, in the heat,” Szefc explained. “He threw a good first, and he wasn’t feeling too hot after that, and being on short rest, we just decided to take him out of there after that. I didn’t want him getting hurt — certainly not him. I think he has a good pro career ahead of him, so that’s what motivated that.”

Senior Jaison Heard took the loss, as fellow senior Peyton Alford did a day prior, this time as the second of eight Hokies to pitch. Over 3 ⅓ innings, he allowed four hits, struck out two, walked one, and allowed Prajner to score on a wild pitch.

“I think a lot of our older guys contributed this week,” Szefc said. “Hopefully they can feel good about their performance. [Heard], Alford gave us a pretty good start yesterday, obviously Thomas got a hit in his last at-bat today. We had some guys that really made quality contributions in their last college games. Everybody wants to walk away from the game feeling good about themselves, and hopefully they will.”

The Hokies failed to get contributions from their youth, which comprises most of their team, though.

“[There’s] a lot of information out there, a lot of video. The opposing arms we’ve faced have done a really good job of executing plans, and our guys haven’t made many adjustments,” Szefc said of the reason for his team’s poor offense over the last month-plus. “I think that’s kind of why you’ve seen what the outcomes have been.”

Notre Dame added three more runs in the sixth, starting with a leadoff home run from Jared Miller, and added two more in the seventh and ninth.

Despite the goose egg, Szefc was appreciative of his veterans’ efforts and acknowledged that building it in Blacksburg will still take time.

“They’ve, I think, helped us put another foot forward,” Szefc said. “I know it probably doesn’t seem that way to a lot of people because we ended so poorly, but as I step back and take a look at the whole thing, this group of guys really kind of helped us move it forward. I can’t exactly measure it right now.”

“I will in the days to come….It’s really been a really up-and-down season for us, but in general, I think down the road in a couple years when we have it in a better place, I think we’ll look at this season as one in which strides were made.”

Tech qualified for the ACC Baseball Championship this year for the first time under Szefc, a key step for the rebuilding program.

“I think if we’re going to take the next step, it’s kind of like going from winning one game in a weekend to winning two, which we did several times there in the first 60% of the season,” Szefc said. “I think going from having a winning record, from going to an ACC tournament to going to the NCAA regional, there are steps that you take along the way. I think as a coach, you hope that you can bypass some of those steps, and we weren’t able to do that this year.”

“But I can tell you from a plan perspective that’s kind of what the plan is. Ultimately, you want to represent the university in an NCAA regional, and that’s obviously what our next step will be.”

Just gotta score some runs first.