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Live Audio: radio - all three games on SuperSports 101.7 FM

The weekend series: For the first time in the month of April, Virginia Tech baseball will play an ACC series at home, the first of two straight weekends at English Field at Union Park, where the team will play three of their next four ACC sets. The Hokies kick off the second half of the ACC slate by welcoming the Pitt Panthers to Blacksburg for the three-game series starting on Friday at 5:30 p.m. First pitch for both Saturday and Sunday are currently slated for 1 p.m.

History versus the Panthers: The Hokies and Panthers have faced off against each other 26 times with Pitt holding a slight edge in the series at 13-12-1. As members of the ACC, the Hokies hold a 4-2 mark, which includes sweeping the Panthers in Blacksburg during the 2014 season, which improved Tech’s mark to just 4-5-1 at home in the series. Pitt managed to take 2 of 3 in last year’s meeting in Pittsburgh, where they hold a 6-3 advantage, while Tech has gotten the better of the Panthers in neutral site games (5-2). In the 26 games, Pitt also holds a slight edge in total runs scored at 150-149.

A little more on that Pitt sweep in 2014: Tech opened its 10th season in the ACC back in 2014 with an 11-5 win over the Panthers, its first ever win in an ACC home opener. The Hokies followed it with two more wins (11-10 and 11-7) to register its first-ever ACC home-opening sweep as well, a feat it equaled in 2015 with the sweep of then-No. 1 Virginia. The 10-plus runs in each game marked the first (and still only) time the Hokies scored at least 10 runs in all three games of an ACC series.

Jenco getting the offense started: This season, Saige Jenco has reached base to start the Hokies’ first inning 15 times (in 30 starts) and has reached base in every start this season, except one) at some point in the game. The 15 times also includes six times in the last seven games. However, after scoring a run six of the first seven times he reached base in the first frame (Tech was 5-2 in those games which included winning the first four), Jenco has only managed to cross the plate once the last eight occurrences.

Kragel gets rare freshman win: Not only was the Tech 4-3 win at UNC the school’s first at Chapel Hill since the 1976 season (18 games), but freshman relief pitcher Cole Kragel became just the ninth Hokie freshman to pick up a win in the ACC, which has been done 13 times. Five of those victories have come from starters, while eight have been picked up by relievers, which includes his teammates Luke Scherzer (2 in 2014), Connor Coward (1 in 2015) and Chris Monaco (1 in 2015). Packy Naughton won a game as a starter last year at Duke.

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