Hokie ClubBLACKSBURG – Finding ways to manufacture runs when it needed to on Sunday afternoon, the Virginia Tech baseball team creatively brought out the brooms with its 6-5 victory against Mercer, completing the two-game sweep during its final non-conference series of the 2025 regular season at English Field at Atlantic Union Bank Park.
Junior shortstop Clay Grady went 2-for-2, scored a run, recorded a sacrifice fly, walked and made several clutch defensive plays for Virginia Tech (29-22), which held leads of 4-0 and 5-2 against Mercer (31-22) yet never trailed.
With the game tied at 5-5 during the top of the eighth inning, Grady was involved in fielding three consecutive high-caliber outs that kept the game deadlocked and invited the Hokies to ultimately break the tie during the bottom of the eighth inning. Applying their bunt defense with none out and runners at first and second base, first baseman Anderson French charged, scooped up Zach Thompson’s ball and fired to third base where Grady lunged at full extension into foul territory, keeping his cleats on the bag to complete the 3-6 putout that nabbed the Bears’ lead runner.
From there, Grady proceeded to field his position two more times before adding another flashy play during the ninth inning that bookended Henry Cooke’s game-winning sacrifice fly during the bottom of the eighth inning. By day’s end, only two of the Hokies’ six runs were scored off hits – David McCann hammered a solo home run during the second inning while Jared Davis belted an RBI single during the fifth inning.
McCann’s homer stood as the game’s only scoring until the fifth inning when Mercer was ironically unable to turn an out at third base off a bunted ball. After Hudson Lutterman had dropped his bunt up the third base line, Brant Baughcum threw errantly in front of the covering shortstop, Bradley Frye, cueing the merry-go-round for Virginia Tech that scored two runs.
Two batters later, Davis connected on his RBI single into right field that brought home Lutterman, widening the Hokies’ lead at the time to 4-0.
Held scoreless through the first 14 innings of series play against Virginia Tech, Mercer finally broke through for two runs during the top of the sixth inning, loading the bases against reliever Mathieu Curtis with three outs to work with. Despite Grant Manning – who picked up the save during Saturday’s win – striking out Ty Dalley to ease the tension, French errantly misplayed a ground ball from Michael Graziano on the right side of the infield, extending the inning for the Bears to score more.
Grady’s sacrifice fly during the bottom of the sixth inning proved to be vital for Virginia Tech, which received a spell of bad luck during the top of the seventh inning.
Mercer outfielder Ely Brown appeared to come one step short of beating out his leadoff infield single when first base umpire Darren Spagnardi motioned safe, meriting an immediate challenge from the Hokies’ head coach, John Szefc. While replay review appeared to show Grady’s throw connecting with French’s glove ahead of Brown brushing the bag, the original call was ruled to stand, leaving Brown on first base.
Had the call been overturned, Manning would never have faced Titan Kamaka, who he walked on five pitches; nor would he have had to pitch to Dalley, who hit the game-tying, three-run home run to right field on Manning’s first delivery.
In the end, Virginia Tech rallied to manufacture the winning run during the eighth inning. After Sam Tackett had earned a leadoff walk, he was bunted into scoring position by McCann, took third base via Terry Busse’s wild pitch and scored on Cooke’s sacrifice fly.