MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. – On the final day of the 19th Annual Brittain Resorts Baseball at the Beach tournament Monday afternoon at TicketReturn.com Field, Virginia Tech baseball hit a pair of home runs, but also committed two errors that proved costly in its 6-5 loss to Kansas State.
The Hokies (1-3), who were among the nation’s leaders in home runs in 2017, got their first long ball of this season in the fourth when Luke Horanski hit a two-run shot to left that also scored Sam Fragale.
After Kansas State (1-3) tied the game in the sixth on a solo home run by Rainer Ausmus, Nick Menken responded in the top of the seventh with his first home run of the season to put Tech up 3-2.
The Hokies added two more runs in the frame to make it a three-run game as Nick Owens, who reached on an error, came home on a squeeze play executed by Stevie Mangrum and Joe Freiday, Jr. scored on a Tom Stoffel single.
However, an unforced error in the eighth frame allowed the Wildcats to score four unearned runs (five total in the game) and take the lead at 6-5. The key hit was a three-run home run by Drew Mount.
Andrew McDonald took the loss for the Hokies on the mound after taking over for starter Ian Seymour. McDonald struck out four in 2.1 innings of work. At the start, Seymour would see the first Kansas State batter reach on an error (and later come around to score) but he would retire 15 straight before surrendering the Ausmus homer.
With the effort, it appeared Seymour might join a very short list. Since the Hokies have been in the ACC (2005), only two freshman pitchers have ever won their first career start for Tech in the month of February – Mathew Price, Feb. 22, 2009 (12-3 at USC Upstate, Tech’s fourth game of the season) and Joe Mantiply, Feb. 28, 2010 (13-1 at Charleston Southern, Tech’s sixth game of the year).
Additional Notes
- This was just the second meeting all-time between the two schools, with Tech winning the first one, 6-3, on March 18, 1989 in Fresno, California.
- Coming into the weekend, the Hokies had played 23 games in the Myrtle Beach area and were 13-10. They are now 14-13, but that includes a 12-6 mark in neutral site games as they’ve struggled against the tournament’s host Coastal Carolina (2-7).
- Freshman pitcher Seymour made his first career start for the Hokies.
Inside the Box
- Horanski – home run, the first of his Tech career; two RBI, second multi-RBI game of the season.
- McDonald - 2.1 innings pitched, four strikeouts to push career totals at Tech to 101 for each.
- Menken – home run, the first of his Tech career.
- N. Owens – stolen base, the first of his Tech career.
- Seymour – career-high 5.2 innings pitched, career-high eight strikeouts.
- Stoffel – two hits, third multi-hit game of the season, 41st of his career.
Up Next
- Tech will take the next few days off from playing before heading to New Orleans, Louisiana to take part in the AllState Sugar Bowl Baseball Classic hosted by the University of New Orleans. Tech will open the event on Friday at 1:30 p.m. against Iowa.