Virginia Falls To Georgia Tech In ACC Baseball Tournament Final
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May 29, 2005
JACKSONVILLE, Fla.(AP)-Georgia Tech won its seven Atlantic CoastConference baseball championship when the Yellow Jackets scored twice inthe seventh inning on a bases loaded walk and a wild pitch to edgeVirginia 4-3 in the championship game at the Baseball Grounds ofJacksonville.
Georgia Tech (42-16) won its second league crown (2003 was the other)in the past three seasons and improved its ACC Tournament record to 14-3during that time frame. Tech lost to Florida State in last year’sfinals. The Yellow Jackets thus earn the league’s automatic berth to theNCAA post-season tournament and will serve as one of the host sites fornext weekend’s 16 regionals that were announced Sunday by the NCAA.
Like it did in two of its three games earlier in the tournament, Techhad to battle from behind, though not to the degree of the 7-0 and 4-0deficits they overcame in their first two tournament games against WakeForest and Florida State respectively. Virginia held 1-0 and 3-2 leadsbefore Tech put together a seventh inning rally for the win.
Andy Hawranick led off with a walk and Whit Robbins followed with asingle. After a force out and a strikeout, Tournament MVP Tyler Greenedrew a walk to load the bases. That was followed by another walk to JeffKindel which brought in the tying run.
Virginia brought in reliever Pat McAnaney, but his second pitch got by catcher Scott Headd allowing Robbins to score with what proved to be the winning run.
The Cavaliers (41-18) advanced a runner to third base in their half ofthe seventh but couldn’t bring him home when Matt Street popped out toshort. In the ninth, pinch-hitter Josh Darby was awarded second basewhen Greene’s throw from shortstop went into the Georgia Tech dugout.But reliever Matt Wieters, brought in to pitch the ninth inning, gotCavs second baseman Kyle Werman to bounce out to first to end the gameand record his sixth save of the year.
Greene had a pair of hits and two walks to lead Tech which made themost of its five hits. Jordan Crews (2-1) threw 3 2/3 innings of one-hitrelief pitching to earn the win.
Tim Henry led the Cavaliers eight-hit attack with three hits and hescored two of their three runs. Sean Doolittle (3-1), pitching in relieffor the third time in the tournament, took the loss after giving up thetwo Tech runs in the seventh.
Whit Robbins and Jeff Kindel joined Greene on the All-tournament teamfor Georgia Tech while Scott Headd, Ryan Zimmerman and Tom Hagan joinedDoolittle and Werman as all-tourney selections for Virginia.