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	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Virginia Tech (16-16)	0	1	1	0	1	0	1	5	0	9	18	1
Wake Forest (11-19)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	3	9	1
WF Baseball Park - 443 Box Score

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Virginia Tech pounded out a season-high tying 18 hits and pushed nine runs across the plate to take the first game of a three-game series against Wake Forest, 9-3, Friday night at WF Baseball Park in ACC action.

Tech (16-16, 2-11) had six players collect at least a pair of hits, as Tim Smalling had a season-high four hits, while Michael Seaborn, Tony Balisteri and Gabe Ortiz each had three. Wake Forest (11-19, 4-9) plated its only runs of the game in the ninth, with Matt Conway registering the lone RBI for the Demon Deacons.

Ronnie Shaban got the Hokies on the board with a lead-off home run in the top of the second, which was his third of the year.

An inning later, with two outs, the Hokies strung together three straight singles to load the bases – with Seaborn, Smalling and Andrew Rash providing the hits.

With Shaban at the plate, Wake Forest pitcher Tim Cooney (3-2) uncorked a wild pitch allowing Seaborn to score and put his team on top 2-0, before retiring Shaban for the third out of the inning.

In the fifth, Shaban came to the plate with one out and Seaborn (single) and Rash (walk) standing on second and first respectively. Shaban drove in his second run of the game, 29^th of the season, with a single to left, bringing home Seaborn.

Two frames later, Seaborn led off the inning with a double, his third hit of the game, and scored on Smallings’s RBI single to make it a 4-0 contest.

Meanwhile, Tech starter Joe Mantiply was limiting the Demon Deacons to just singles – five over the first five frames – and getting defense help to erase them or strand them on base.

In the first, Tech erased a runner who reached second on an error with a put out at third. In the second, another lead-off base runner was doubled up – one of two Tech double plays in the contest – and in the third and fourth, a single base runner was left stranded again.

In the fifth, Mantiply faced his first threat, with a pair of base runners on, but he got a ground-ball out to end the frame. In the sixth, he stranded a seventh runner after a lead-off double, the only extra base hit allowed by Mantiply.

Mantiply improved to 3-5 with the victory after throwing six scoreless frames with three strikeouts and walking just one. Manny Martir went 1 1/3 frames with a strikeout and Brandon Fisher finished the game with 1 2/3 innings of work and two strikeouts.

The Hokies broke the game open in the eighth, putting five runs on the board, with Jake Atwell plating one with an RBI double, Smalling bringing in two with a triple, which included Seaborn scoring a career-high fourth run of the game, his team-leading 35^th of the year. Rash and Balisteri also drove in one each in the eighth.

The two teams will continue the series with another game on Saturday. First pitch is slated for 4 p.m.

For updates on Virginia Tech baseball, follow the Hokies on Twitter (@VT_Baseball).