Virginia Tech No-Hits Syracuse

By Spencer Pierce

CitrusTV’s Softball Beat Reporter

Last week, I wrote about how the Syracuse softball team’s offense wasn’t producing enough hits. On Friday, April 30th, the Syracuse Orange were no-hit by the Virginia Tech Hokies.

Call me a magician, call me a wizard, call me whatever you want.

Keely Rochard, the starting pitcher for the Hokies, was simply unbelievable. Rochard struck out 16(!) batters, walked one, and gave up no hits. It was Rochard’s 13th double-digit strikeout outing of the season, an incredible feat.

Virginia Tech, who comes into the series ranked 20th in the country, only has more fire to fuel them. They looked like lions about to feast on their prey, even with Orange ace Alexa Romero in the circle.

The Orange dropped the ball, both figuratively and literally. They made five errors throughout the game with three of them coming within the span of four batters in the sixth inning. Granted, the wind at Skytop Softball Stadium was crazy, but the errors made were hard to watch, especially Toni Martins in centerfield, where she completely misread a ball and watched the ball tail away from her as it came down to earth.

There really isn’t much more for the Orange to do other than hit the ball. There were no home runs today, there were no crazy diving catches that made Sportscenter’s top 10 plays again. There really wasn’t anything out of the ordinary other than the team in orange not getting a hit.

This is ideally the worst start to a series a team could have, so Syracuse must show up in a doubleheader tomorrow and look like they want to be there, because today, only one team seemed like they wanted to win the game, let alone be at the stadium, and that was Virginia Tech.

As harsh as that may be, it’s a reality for Shannon Doepking’s team. They got no-hit. Sure, they’re supposed to lose these games, similar to how she reacted when they were mercy-ruled by Florida State. But getting no-hit and committing five errors makes for a difficult next few games.

The Orange will meet the Hokies back at Skytop Softball Stadium tomorrow for a double-header, with the first pitch scheduled for one p.m.

swpierce@syr.edu | @swlp91