Hokie ClubBLACKSBURG – With sophomore right-hander Brett Renfrow carrying a shutout into the eighth inning on Friday, the Virginia Tech baseball team came away with its first ranked victory of the season, holding off No. 16 Louisville, 5-4, at English Field at Atlantic Union Bank Park.
Despite his comparably low strikeout count (three), Renfrow was effective in pitching to contact against the Cardinals, weathering nine hits – seven of which were scattered through seven innings, where he stranded eight runners on base (four in scoring position). The Hokies’ second-year starter departed two batters into the eighth inning after dealing 95 pitches and allowing his only run (unearned) off the bat of catcher Matt Klein’s RBI single.
Virginia Tech (15-7, 3-4 ACC) received a pair of two-run home run swings from cleanup man Sam Tackett, who celebrated his third multi-homer game of the 2025 season. Tackett, who entered the day as the ACC leader in slugging percentage, finished 3-3 with a walk, batting the Hokies ahead to leads of 2-0 and 4-0 during the first and sixth innings, respectively.
After Renfrow had retired Louisville (17-4, 2-2 ACC) in order on nine pitches to start the game, Tackett made starter Patrick Forbes pay for his five-pitch walk to Cam Pittman. Fouling off a 2-2 pitch, Tackett tucked the next pitch he saw from Forbes inside the left field foul pole, homering for the eighth time this season while supplying Renfrow with early run support.
Renfrow had the answers to every sign of offense by the Cardinals, relying on defensive fielding by Hudson Lutterman at third base during the third inning to strand runners at the corners. In similar fashion, Renfrow worked around a one-out double by Lucas Monroe during the fourth inning, recovering to strike out Garret Pike and induce the inning-ending fly ball, secured by Ben Watson in left field.
Virginia Tech had a chance to widen its lead during the bottom of the fourth inning after Watson, Tackett and David McCann had chimed in with consecutive leadoff hits. However, Forbes denied the Hokies a run, squashing the rally with a timely strikeout of Henry Cooke while having Garrett Michel ground into the inning-ending, 4-6-3 double play.
With Virginia Tech’s lead still 2-0 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning, Watson rallied from an 0-2 count to draw a nine-pitch walk off Forbes, inviting the Louisville starter to pitch competitively to Tackett. Catching too much of the plate, Tackett crushed his second home run off Forbes with an approximate distance of 437 feet to left center field, punishing the ball at 108 miles per hour.
Creating two-out traffic behind Tackett’s homer, Lutterman doubled in Michel for the Hokies’ third run of the inning, providing Renfrow with a key run of insurance. Confidently, Renfrow proceeded to shut the door on the Cardinals during the seventh inning, leaving two runners in scoring position courtesy of an infield pop-up by shortstop Alex Alicea.
Louisville nearly spun the game in its favor during the top of the ninth, plating three runs from a bases-loaded, one-out rally. Preston Crowl and Cameron LeJeune were both on the hook for walking in runs, though LeJeune’s strikeout of Pike helped Virginia Tech secure the one-run victory.