ACC Baseball News & Notes: New Blood Starting to Shine

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If the first two weeks of conference play is an indication, the Atlantic Coast Conference baseball season could be a wild one. Teams that in previous years struggled to make a dent in the standings are doing more than just holding their own. Two examples of this would be the division leaders the league has at the moment. Boston College in the Atlantic, and Georgia Tech in the Coastal. Neither of these teams was expected to be in this position at any point this season. Let’s take a look at them and the rest of the ACC baseball news for this week.

The Yellow Jackets hold a one-game lead over Louisville as the week begins. That advantage was gained based on last weekend’s series between the two teams. After losing the opening game of the series last Friday night, Georgia Tech roared back to win the next two games and take the series. The offense was a major reason for the series win as the Yellow Jackets scored 32 runs in the final two games. The win also keeps a streak alive for the program as this is the 12th consecutive ACC series win that dates back to March of 2019. Meanwhile, the 5-1 conference start,is the program’s best since 2011.

Boston College is coming off a non-conference win at then #25 Auburn. The Eagles took game one behind four home runs and solid starting pitching by Mason Peilo. The Tigers would come back and win game two on Saturday behind their bats and their pitching. Sunday’s finale looked like a repeat of Saturday until the ninth inning. Trailing by eight and down to their last out of the game, the Eagles staged an epic comeback against the Tigers bullpen. They scored eight runs to tie the game, the last three coming off the bat of Sal Frelick whose third home run of the weekend tied the game at 9-9. The comeback was completed in the 10th when Luke Gold hit a two-run HR to give BC the lead 11-9. Joey Walsh came out of the bullpen to get the win by going 1.1 innings of relief. For Boston College, it was their first series win over a team from the SEC. The comeback has been done only two other times in recent college baseball history. In 2018 Miami did it to Clemson, and in 2017 Florida A&M came back versus ETSU.

Notre Dame has started the season in good shape by taking two out of three from Clemson last weekend. The Irish have now won three straight conference series and six of their last eight in league play dating back to March of 2019. The strong start by ND has been noticed by those who voted in the polls. Notre Dame begins the week ranked #25 in a couple of college baseball polls.

Virginia Tech is another one making some early season noise. The Hokies, fresh off a series win at North Carolina which was their first-ever win over the Tar Heels, now find themselves ranked for the first time since 2013. Baseball America has them at #12 entering the week. The ranking is based on wins over both the Tar Heels and the Miami Hurricanes.

The ACC Player of the Week is BC infielder Sal Frelick. Last week was quite a seven-day period for Mr. Frelick. In a 3-1 week for the Eagles, Frelick batted .571 with five extra-base hits, six runs scored, seven RBi, and slugged 1.375. In the series versus Auburn, he hit a team-leading .500 (5-for-10) with three home runs and five runs batted in. He totaled a 2.005 OPS.

The ACC Pitcher of the Week is Florida State freshman right-handed Parker Messick. In the series opener on Friday night at home vs Virginia, he went eight innings and struck out a career-high 11 batters. The Seminoles defeated Virginia 2-0. He allowed three hits, zero walks, and registered perfect innings in both the seventh and eighth innings. He threw 114 pitchers on the night.

That’s it for this week. We will be back next week with more from the ACC.