BLACKSBURG – Vaulting into D1Baseball's top 25 rankings for the first time this season, the No. 21 Virginia Tech baseball team (20-8) will look to keep its foot on the gas pedal on Tuesday, April 12, when Tech treks to Lynchburg for a midweek matchup against Liberty (20-10) at the Liberty Baseball Stadium.
Tuesday's game between the Hokies and the Flames will air live on ESPN+ with coverage beginning at 6 p.m. Fans may also tune into WRAD-FM 101.7 to listen to the game as called by the radio play-by-play voice of Tech baseball, Evan Hughes.
| MIDWEEK SCHEDULE | |||||
| Day | Date | Time | Opponent | Network | Radio |
| Tue. | April 12 | 6 p.m. | Liberty | ESPN+ | WRAD-FM 101.7 |
PROBABLE STARTERS
• Tuesday: Ryan Kennedy (1-3, 4.67 ERA) vs. Trey Gibson (3-3, 4.40 ERA)
THREE THINGS TO KNOW
• Poll Vault: Virginia Tech cracked three national polls on Monday after notching its fourth consecutive ACC series victory and becoming the program's fastest team to eclipse 20 victories during its current conference tenure (since 2005). Recognized most prominently by the NCAA and the ACC, D1Baseball slotted the Hokies at No. 21 this week – a direct replacement of the No. 21 NC State team Tech took two out of three games from over the weekend at English Field. Elsewhere, the Hokies jumped from No. 23 to No. 17 inside Perfect Game's top 25 while earning the No. 28 spot in the NCBWA's top 30. Virginia Tech also begins the week ranked No. 40 in the NCAA Division I Baseball RPI – the ninth highest mark among ACC programs.
• National Player of the Week: A key piece to Virginia Tech's success against No. 21 NC State last week, third-year catcher Cade Hunter was named on Monday to Collegiate Baseball Newspaper's National Players of the Week. Hunter batted .538 (7-for-13) during Tech's 3-1 week against Marshall and the Wolfpack, totaling eight RBIs while swinging five extra-base hits, including four home runs. During Friday's 21-10 rout of NC State, Hunter hammered a 467-foot moonshot off the batter's eye in center field, marking the longest home run hit by a Tech player at English Field this season. The native of Mount Laurel, New Jersey, reached base safely during 11 of his 17 plate appearances for a .647 on-base percentage, catching all but five of the Hokies' 39 strikeouts. Hunter enters Tuesday's game at Liberty ranked second among the ACC leaders in batting average (.412) behind his Blacksburg teammate, Jack Hurley (.431). Tech's backstop has also reached base safely during each of his 27 appearances this season.
• Midweek Opposition: Virginia Tech is eager to break its streak against Liberty, having come up on the wrong end of three straight series meetings since the beginning of the 2019 season. Fifth-year Hokies Ryan Metz and Ryan Okuda are the only remaining members from Tech's 2018 squad that posted its most recent victory against the Flames – an 11-5 result in Lynchburg that featured a five-run rally for the Hokies during the top of the fourth inning. Despite Tech leading the all-time series, 40-29, the Hokies have prevailed only twice during the last eight series meetings since winning six in a row between 2010 and 2013. Like Virginia Tech, Liberty began the 2022 season with a 10-1 record, ascending D1Baseball's top 25 rankings to as high as No. 14 on March 7 and remaining inside the top 15 through March 21. However, the Flames have since split each of their last 12 games – including a 5-4 mark against the Atlantic Sun – while dropping two of their three midweek games to ACC competition.
UP NEXT
No. 21 Virginia Tech will begin a three-game, top-25 ACC series against No. 2 Miami on Thursday, April 14. First pitch between the Hokies and the Hurricanes at English Field at Atlantic Union Bank Park is scheduled for 7 p.m.