Wake Forest Athletics
Richmond Ousts Virginia Tech
6/21/1999 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 29, 1999
By DAVID DROSCHAK
AP Sports Writer
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) - Casey Burns struck out a career-high 15 and Jeff Kenney hit a grand slam as Richmond stayed alive in the NCAA baseball tournament with an 11-8 victory over Virginia Tech on Saturday night.
The second-seeded Spiders (40-16), taking the field an hour after losing 12-1 to top-seeded Wake Forest, blew a 6-0 lead, but rallied with a run in the fifth and two each in the sixth and seventh innings to advance to Sunday's title game.
Richmond would have to beat Wake Forest, 2-0 in the double-elimination tourney, twice to advance to one of eight Super Regionals across the country.
"This definitely was draining, these two games in a row," said Kenney. "But we have to come out (Sunday) and see what happens. I've seen a lot of weird things happen in baseball."
Virginia Tech closed its season at 42-17.
"It's pretty hard to win when you give up 12 runs," said Virginia Tech coach Chuck Hartman. "Overall, it has been a great season, but it's always tough when that last one occurs."
Burns, clocked at 92 mph, struck out six consecutive Virginia Tech batters in the fifth and sixth innings - and after allowing a leadoff double in the seventh - struck out the side for the third straight inning.
Burns was relieved by Bobby Basham in the eighth after throwing 140 pitches. Burns' previous high strikeout game was 14 this season at George Mason.
"Early on I got rushed warming up and it always takes me a little while to get loose," said Burns. "That one inning I fell apart a little bit, but I felt I was much stronger after 100 pitches."
Virginia Tech had the tying run at the plate in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, but Kevin Bice became his team's 17th strikeout victim.
Kenney helped stake Richmond to a 6-0 lead with his second career grand slam in the second inning as Burns (9-3) was cruising along with a one-hitter and five strikeouts through three innings.
But Burns got touched for six runs on seven hits in the bottom of the fourth as the Hokies took a 7-6 lead on the hard-throwing right-hander, who entered the game with a 2.85 ERA.
"They had him on the ropes ... but he has been a bulldog all year," Richmond coach Ron Atkins said of Burns. "I decided to stick with him, and boy I'm glad I did."
"We were getting to him but he came back that one inning and went to his good stuff, he came right after us," said Virginia Tech second baseman Randy Martin. "He went to his bread-and-butter. That was the deciding factor. He shut us down."
Mike Dwyer, who hit his 21st homer of the season in the first inning for the Spiders, tied the game at 7-7 when he scored on a passed ball in the top of the fifth and his two-out RBI double an inning later helped give Richmond a 9-7 lead.
The Spiders tacked on two more runs in the seventh to beat the Hokies for the second time in the tourney.
Richmond played without regular right-fielder Dan Phipps, who broke his right wrist when he was hit by a pitch in the Wake Forest loss earlier Saturday.
