BLACKSBURG – Despite Maroon dominating on the scoreboard in Virginia Tech baseball's Fall World Series Game 5 Monday afternoon, the winners of the overall series came down to the final inning. Orange was able to win the final frame with two runs and claim the series at English Field at Atlantic Union Bank Park.
The decision before the series began was that there would be three competitions, which included the overall series, run differential and inning wins (think golf skins). Entering the night, Orange was leading in games (3-1) and innings won (17-10) and the run differential was tied.
Maroon quickly put the run differential in its column with a four-spot in the first and three more runs in the fourth as they took a 7-0 lead. Reagan Teegarden hit a double and triple in the game for his two hits, while Brett Stallings and Matt Ballance each had two hits and two RBI. Jason Rooks also had two RBI and scored twice as did Xander Hamilton.
Maroon arms Henry Weycker (2.0 innings/1 strikeout), Nic Psimas (1.0/1), Ryan Gleason (1.0) and Noah Johnson (2.0/4) silenced the Orange offense over six frames, allowing just one hit and scattering four hits and a hits batsman.
Entering the seventh, Maroon had climbed back into the innings race and trailed 17-16 and a win in the final frame would have given them the overall series victory. However, a hit batsman, a walk, and two-out RBI singles by Lucas Donlon and Kevin Madden gave Orange two runs in the top half.
In the home half, Nathan Starliper, in his second inning of scoreless relief for Samuel Rochard (1.1/2), surrendered a two-out single before ending the game with a foul out to Madden and giving Orange the win.