Top-ranked Diamond Jackets remain undefeated

The last time the Tech baseball team was ranked No. 1 in the nation the Jackets failed to deliver in the national spotlight, going 2-2 against sub-par teams. This time, the Jackets did not fail but passed with flying colors. Since achieving the top ranking in the country by the USA Today top 25 coaches’ poll, the Jackets are an impressive 4-0, defeating opponents by a combined score of 50-15.

With the spotlight shining from the national attention, the Jackets defeated Rutgers in the opening of a three-game series last Friday, 25-8.

Head Coach Danny Hall spoke about whether the top ranking adds extra pressure to the team.

“There’s no extra pressure. We don’t really worry about where we are ranked. We are trying to get better every day. We have had a good program for a lot of years,” Hall said. “We’re pretty much going to get everybody’s best shot anyhow; it doesn’t matter where we are ranked.”

Tech was led by centerfielder Danny Payne, who batted 4-7, with a home run, two doubles and a career-high seven RBIs. In addition, the former high school pitcher saw his first collegiate action on the mound, as he tossed a perfect ninth inning while picking up a strikeout.

“It’s fun. Baseball is a game of streaks and you get on it and you do the same thing you did the day before, hoping for the same outcome,” Payne said. “It just so happened that I got an opportunity to come in and throw, and I just wanted to make the best of my opportunity.”

For the weekend, Payne was 10-14 (.714) with two home runs, three doubles, 10 RBIs, five runs scored, a stolen base, a 1.357 slugging percentage and a .750 on-base percentage. For his efforts, he earned player of the week honors from the Atlantic Coast Conference.

It was more of the same for the Jackets on Saturday, as the Jackets defeated Rutgers 12-2. Starting pitcher Lee Hyde was impressive as he threw seven innings of two-hit ball, allowing just one run over that span. Three different Jackets hit home runs, including junior college transfer Wally Crancer, Whit Robbins and Payne, who was 2-2 with three RBIs.

Hyde talked about what it was like on the mound with both a solid offense and a solid defense behind him.

“The defense played great today. It’s easy to pitch when you have the defense playing like that behind you and you’re scoring a lot of runs,” Hyde said.

The final game of the weekend series with Rutgers was a grind at the start. The Jackets were nursing a 3-1 through six innings before the bats came alive. Tech scored eight runs in the final two innings to drop the Scarlet Knights 11-4 to sweep the series.

Whit Robbins hit 4-5 and picked up his fourth home run of the season, and reigning ACC rookie of the year Matt Wieters drove in four runs.

Tim Ladd, for the second consecutive outing, was sharp, as he threw a career-high seven innings and allowed just one run on four hits while striking out a career-high five batters.

“If you can’t play with confidence, you are not going to be good at this game. You can’t always go out there and...do good, but at least you are going out there being confident, so you have a better chance of doing good,” Ladd said.

After completing the three-game sweep of Rutgers, Tech was anointed as the top team on two other national baseball polls, Collegiate Baseball and Baseball America.

After garnering the acclaim of these two other polls the Jackets faced the Huskies of Northeastern University and 2005 America East Conference pitcher of the year, Adam Ottavino. Tech was stymied through the first six innings against the Huskies’ star pitcher as they were held hitless until the seventh inning.

Trailing 1-0 in the seventh inning, Matt Wieters finally broke the no-hit bid with a single to lead off the inning. Steven Blackwood then followed with a two-run home run to give the Jackets a 2-1 lead, which they would not relinquish.

The Jackets were to hang on for the victory despite being no-hit for six innings, striking out 12 times, and having only two total hits.

Tech returns to the field this weekend as they open up ACC conference play by hosting Virginia in a three-game series. First pitch is set for 4 p.m. on Friday, and 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. All three games can be heard on WREK-FM (91.1).