Virginia Tech walks it off on costly Duke error in extras, 2-1

Nathan Andrews

Staff Writer

April 21, 2024

BLACKSBURG – There must’ve been magic in the air in Blacksburg this weekend. Virginia Tech and Duke went to 11 innings in back-to-back games for two classic endings. In the latter game, the Hokies had their moment.

A heartbreaking defeat on Friday night dampened the spirits of Blacksburg, with the Blue Devils spoiling the Hokies’ comeback in the eleventh inning with a Ben Miller knock — that wasn’t the case the next night, however, as No. 23 Virginia Tech (25-11, 12-8 ACC) walked off No. 7 Duke (28-11, 12-8), 2-1.

A slugfest on Friday night switched to a pitching duel Saturday night quickly, as both staffs showed out during the match.

Early on, both teams put runners on, but struggled to bring them home. Tech’s hitters had a tough time scoring runs against Duke pitcher Kyle Johnson. Runners being stranded was a popular theme in the game, as both staffs frequently got out of jams.

The scoring drought came and went, however. During the top of the third, scorching-hot Duke third baseman Ben Miller ripped a laser to right-center and drove in Wallace Clark for the first run of the evening. Miller extended his hitting streak to a whopping 16 games with the two-bagger. 

It was the only hit of the night for Miller, and the only run of the night for the Blue Devils partially due to the standout performance of Tech starting pitcher Brett Renfrow. The freshman righty went six innings deep, only allowing one run off four hits, one walk and striking out four. 

“He’s arguably been one of our better arms and one of our two top starters, so to speak,” Tech head coach John Szefc said postgame.

The Manassas, Va., native has been a polished starter for the Hokies this season, lowering his ERA to 3.50 against a Duke team that’s averaged 8.5 runs per game. Renfrow rose to the occasion to silence the hot-hitting squad.

“It was awesome,” Renfrow said. “It was a fun game throughout all the innings. I mean, it was awesome.”

Shortly after the Blue Devils tacked on their first run, the Hokies responded. The bottom of the fourth rolled around, and a double by Eddie Micheletti Jr. followed by a single down the first base line by Carson DeMartini put the tying runner on third. Henry Cooke hit a sacrifice fly to right field to bring in Micheletti to tie the game at one.

It was all silent on the western front for much of the game after the Hokies response. A huge moment came in the bottom of the sixth when Tech loaded the bases, but Duke pitcher Jimmy Romano struck out David McCann and Ethan Gibson to get out of the jam.

Even though he got pulled shortly before, Duke starter Kyle Johnson shoved on Saturday. The freshman lowered his ERA to a stingy 1.88 on the year, going 5 ⅓ innings and striking out six batters on just three hits, two walks and one earned run.

Relief pitching played a huge role on Saturday night. After Renfrow departed, the trio of David Shoemaker, Jacob Stretch and Grady Manning tossed a combined hitless five  innings, only allowing two walks and striking out eight. 

“It’s probably one of our best pitched games of the year,” Szefc said. “I give a ton of credit to those guys. They were outstanding. Any one of those guys could have been the player of the game. They battled hard.”

Not just the performance, but the passion that Tech’s staff had coming off the mound was huge for their momentum. It seemed like every time they got out of a jam or struck out the final batter of the inning, they were fired up walking back to the dugout.

“I’d say this is the closest team in my three years since I’ve been here,” Christian Martin said. “Especially the guys on the mound, it’s just a lot of guys that’ve come from different schools that want to get to the next level, so they’ve got a lot of fire in what they do, and they get after it. I love the emotion they show. It gets us going.”

Every inning was mostly up and down going into extra innings. After three quick outs in the bottom of the ninth, it was time to go to extras for the second night in a row. It was the first time since 2017 that Tech had consecutive games go to extras. 

The tenth inning came and went, and the Hokies escaped a quick jam with the help of Manning to bring it down to the bottom of the eleventh, just like the night before. The tension in the crowd was crisp, and with each out the fans became louder.

Ebel drew a walk to put the winning run on base. McCann was hit by a pitch to put two on. Gibson grounded into a fielder’s choice to third that registered the first out. Grady grounded into another fielder’s choice to second which left the winning run, McCann, one base away from victory.

Up stepped Christian Martin, the junior from Amherst, Va., who batted leadoff Saturday night. With two outs, he hit a routine groundball to shortstop and hustled to first. It was surely time to go to the twelfth inning.

Right?

In dramatic fashion, Duke first baseman Logan Bravo dropped the routine throw to make David McCann the game-winning run. With the crowd roaring in a mixture of joy and disbelief, the Hokies’ dugout ran out and swarmed Martin on the diamond.

“As I was passing first, I saw the ball on the ground and started laughing,” Martin said. “Just sometimes, baseball takes things from you, sometimes it gives you things.”

The wild win evened the series at one apiece, setting up a rubber match to end the weekend series. No. 23 Virginia Tech will look to win the series against No. 7 Duke at 1 pm EST at English Field on Sunday. 

“You don’t really anticipate a game between two teams like that to end on an error, but you gotta get all three outs in an inning,” Szefc said.