Amber and Autumn Bishop hit bombs as Flames down Virginia Tech

The Hokies were clinging to a two-run lead and the former Brookville phenom was brought in to give the Flames a different look in hopes of escaping the inning with the lead.

Autumn Bishop ruined those plans with one swing of the bat.

Bishop turned on an inside rise ball from Dail and smashed it over the right-field fence for a go-ahead grand slam, and Liberty rallied to defeat Virginia Tech 6-3 on a chilly Tuesday evening at Liberty Softball Stadium.

“It was good spot personally, I think, but she just turned around on it,” Dail said of the pitch to Bishop. “After going away on her twice, we were expecting her to kind of get jammed up on an inside pitch, but she adjusted well and just turned on it. You’ve got to tip your hat to her at that point.”

Dail got ahead of Bishop with a first-pitch strike, and her 1-1 pitch was inside to the left-handed hitting Bishop.

Bishop turned on the offering and left little doubt of its destination as it easily cleared the right-field wall to give the Flames (33-12) a 5-3 lead.

It was the first grand slam hit by a Liberty player in the four-year history of Liberty Softball Stadium.

“The other pitcher [Rochard] was throwing me middle-in all night,” Bishop said, “so I just kind of thought if it’s middle, if it’s inside, I’m just going to rip the ball and hit it as hard as I can.”

Bishop, who came a few feet shy of hitting a homer to lead off the first inning, also flew out to dead center field in the third inning against Rochard, who retired 10 consecutive batters before running into trouble in the decisive fifth inning.

Sarah Robertson led off the inning with a walk and advanced to second when Madison Via reached on a fielding error by Hokies left fielder Cana Davis.

Rochard struck out the next two batters, but issued a four-pitch walk to Deidra See to turn over the batting order to Bishop.

“It’s more about making them make an adjustment to our pitcher in that situation,” Thomas said of the decision to bring in Dail with the bases loaded. “ … They made good on it.”

The Hokies (19-25) took a 3-1 lead by capitalizing on two hits and a Liberty error in the third inning. Tech had the bases loaded with no outs, but Julia DiMartino struck out the final three batters of the inning to escape the jam she inherited in relief of starter Chase Cassady.

“We scored two runs in the third — we had the bases loaded and no outs and only scored two runs,” Thomas said. “We probably should have scored a couple of more runs there, and then that four-run shot probably doesn’t hurt quite as bad.”

DiMartino stranded a runner in each inning after the third, and her ability to wiggle out of jams paid dividends for the Flames.

“She’s pretty daggone good and she made us chase up in the zone a lot,” Thomas said of DiMartino.

The Hokies left 10 runners on base Tuesday night. Seven of those runners were left on base by DiMartino (19-7), who struck out the majority of her eight batters on rise balls out of the strike zone.

“It’s key to know what the hitter swings at and you keep throwing it,” DiMartino said.

“People are going to get on base,” Liberty coach Dot Richardson said, “so how do you respond to it? When you’re able to slam the door shut and be able to pitch better than you did or play defense better than you did, that’s what helps you to win games.”

The Flames won despite committing a season-high three errors, all of which came in the first three innings and resulted in only one of Tech’s three runs being earned against Cassady, who was named the Big South Conference pitcher of the week on Monday.

After the Hokies took a 1-0 lead, Amber Bishop (2 for 3) followed with a one-out solo homer in the bottom of the first inning to tie the game.

“It was awesome,” she said of her homer.

The Flames improved to 2-0 this season when the Bishops have homered in the same game.