BLACKSBURG — It was not “hammer time” at Virginia Tech on Saturday.
But it was “air hammer” time.
The Hokies belted 5 homers and experienced to resort to swinging an imaginary sledgehammer to rejoice them in a 14-8 win in excess of Oklahoma on Saturday in Game 2 of an NCAA Super Regional at English Area.
Nick Biddison hit a pair of solo homers, tying the Tech record for the most homers by a participant in an NCAA event recreation. Gavin Cross and Cade Hunter each belted a two-operate homer. Tanner Schobel experienced a solo homer.
The Hokies experienced been allowed to provide their sledgehammer, the “residence run hammer,” in front of their dugout to rejoice homers for the duration of last weekend’s NCAA regional, but they ended up educated by the NCAA that they could not do it through the Tremendous Regional.
“That’s total crap from the NCAA,” DeMartini reported. “You see Tennessee strike their property run and set their fur coat on. You see Texas strike their household run and set their helmet on. But what is the NCAA obtained to do to appear in excess of listed here and explain to us that we can’t slam our have hammer at our own park?
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“You can find some guys on the workforce that variety of chat like it really is nearly like getting in a jail in your personal ballpark. The NCAA likes to management points.
“The supporters occur out for the hammer. They want to see us slam the hammer. I imagine it really is complete crap that we cannot slam the hammer. But we are not going to enable that impact us. We’re likely to slam an air hammer.”
Tech coach John Szefc mentioned it was DeMartini’s “superior notion” to have the Hokies swing an imaginary sledgehammer this weekend.
NCAA baseball secretary and procedures editor Randy Bruns experienced stated in a statement Friday that there experienced been “probably unstable predicaments” at various regionals last weekend and so “in the fascination of endorsing excellent sportsmanship, participants at all locations had been questioned to limit any functions that use props of any type to in the dugout.”
According to Bruns, an NCAA baseball rule states that “any orchestrated activities by dugout staff made to distract, intimidate, or disconcert the opposing staff or replicate lousy sportsmanship shall not be allowed.”
As a substitute of scrapping the celebration altogether, the Hokies who homered Saturday swung a fake sledgehammer instead — just as the two Hokies who homered in Video game 1 on Friday had finished.
“If you might be going to take away what the Hokies are, we’re just heading to do it anyway, in a sort of sarcastic vogue,” Hunter mentioned. “But it truly is acquired the very same truly feel.”
Tech, which was designated as the browsing group Saturday, jumped out to a 5- guide halfway through the 3rd inning and led the relaxation of the way.
A single-third of Tech’s 15 hits have been homers.
Biddison started the game with a leadoff homer.
“I am going to continue to keep swinging the air hammer,” explained Biddison, who experienced 3 hits and two RBIs. “We acquired that [sledgehammer] taken away from us, so we just determined we do not need the hammer, we’ll just do an air hammer. We still get fired up, the group still will get fired up.”

