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BLACKSBURG – On the final day of the 2016 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, Virginia Tech baseball had two of its players’ names called which ran the Hokies’ streak of having multiple players selected in a single draft to eight straight years. The two Hokies chosen Saturday were redshirt-junior Saige Jenco and junior Aaron McGarity.

Jenco, the first Tech player picked in the 2016 draft, was taken with the 25th pick of the 24th round by the Los Angeles Dodgers, just the third time a Hokie has been taken by the organization. The centerfielder joins Franklin Stubbs (1982, first round) and Steve Domecus (2010, ninth) as the only other two Tech players taken by the organization.

This was the second straight year Jenco, a State College, Pennsylvania native, has heard his name called in the draft, as the Boston Red Sox chose him with the 801st pick of the 2015 draft. His selection this year by the Dodgers, the 731st overall pick, was 70 places better and continued a trend among Hokies who return to school after being drafted.

In all, 12 Hokies have been drafted, returned to Tech and were drafted again and the dozen have combined to improve their selection by an average of 140 picks.

McGarity, from Richmond, Virginia, heard his named called for the first time and was taken with the 12th pick of the 34th round by the Boston Red Sox and becomes the fifth Hokie to be chosen by the organization.

The right-handed pitcher, who was the 1,018th pick, joins Billy Plante (1985, 20th), Tim Buheller (1986, 19th), Matthew Price (2010, eighth) and Jenco as Hokies to be selected by the Red Sox, while current Tech player Stevie Mangrum was also a Red Sox pick out of high school (2015, 28th).

The eight straight years with multiple choices is the longest stretch ever in program history. The longest prior to the current streak was a pair of three straight drafts with multiple choices – the 1981 through 1983 drafts and the 1988 through 1990 drafts. In all, Tech has had at least two players chosen in 23 of the 51 years of the draft.

Also, during this current run (since 2009), Tech has seen 25 different players chosen in the draft with 19 of them never being drafted prior to their arrival in Blacksburg, which includes Jenco and McGarity. In the 51 years of the MLB First-Year Player draft, Hokies have been chosen a total of 85 times.

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