After a successful home opener on Tuesday, Notre Dame baseball will play out its first Atlantic Coast Conference home series of 2025 this weekend. The Irish (12-6, 1-5 ACC) will host the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (17-4, 4-2 ACC) in windy then cold then perhaps wet conditions.
Notre Dame has played two conference series on the road already against ranked opponents Wake Forest and Clemson. The Irish lost each of their first five games against the two powerhouses but finished well with a 7-3 defeat of the Tigers this past Sunday. They’ll seek more success this weekend as their 14-game homestand continues after going 9-6 in home ACC games a season ago and posting the same record in such contests in 2023.
Last time out, Notre Dame dominated Butler to begin its home schedule with an 18-4 win in seven innings on Tuesday. With the result, the Irish have scored 18 or more runs in a game on two separate occasions for the first time in head coach Shawn Stiffler’s tenure, factoring in the 19-6 beatdown of North Florida on Feb. 15.
The Irish did open the game somewhat flat, sitting in a 3-3 tie with Butler at the midway point of the fourth inning. Notre Dame had made three errors, forcing graduate starting pitcher Dylan Heine to grind his way through 3.1 innings with three total runs (one earned) allowed on six hits.
As it turned out, Notre Dame just needed to get Butler’s bullpen gate open to take complete control of the game. Once Bulldog starter Colin Dailey departed after giving up a go-ahead home run by freshman infielder Bino Watters in a three-run Irish third inning, the picture changed drastically. Notre Dame tallied eight runs in a 13-hit fourth inning before adding six more runs in the fifth and another for good measure in the sixth. All told, the Irish finished the day with 17 hits in seven innings as a team, with all nine starters recording at least one base knock.
Junior shortstop Estevan Moreno once again stole the show in an Irish home opener, following last year’s three-home run performance with the first cycle of his career. The captain got it done the hard way, singling and doubling first before mashing a long home run in the fifth and hustling out his first collegiate triple in the sixth. Moreno’s 4-for-4 showcase yanked his batting average up nearly 50 points to .192, as he now has four extra-base hits in the last two games after a largely unproductive first month.
The man hitting ahead of Moreno, meanwhile, continued his phenomenal introduction to college baseball. Watters was 3-for-5 with his first career two-home run game, as he lasered an opposite-field shot over the left-field wall in the third inning before pulling another through the wind to right-center in the fifth. The advanced freshman still has more walks (16) than strikeouts (14) while pacing the Irish in RBIs (20) and tying Moreno for the team lead in home runs with four.
Notre Dame’s new team leader in on-base plus slugging (OPS) had himself a great day as well. Sophomore catcher Davis Johnson was 3-for-5 with a three-run home run that broke the game open in the fourth inning. He’s now slashing .345/.457/.586 for the season and challenging fellow sophomore Carson Tinney, Notre Dame’s Opening Day backstop, for more of a 50-50 playing time split. With Johnson being a left-handed hitter and Tinney a right-handed bat, that may very well be a good problem for Stiffler to have.
Looking ahead to this weekend on the mound, expect Notre Dame to stay with sophomore right-hander Jack Radel on Friday, graduate righty Jackson Dennies on Saturday and junior righty Rory Fox to close out the series on Sunday. Radel (1-2, 5.19 ERA) was great last weekend at Clemson, working five innings with one earned run allowed. Dennies (2-2, 5.73 ERA) didn’t have his best stuff but should fare well in this Saturday’s forecast high temperature of 40 degrees. Fox (0-1, 3.68 ERA) started in Notre Dame’s only ACC win of the season last Sunday, punching out five in four innings of one-run baseball.
Georgia Tech’s good all-around game
Coming off their fourth NCAA Tournament appearance in the last five full college baseball seasons, the Yellow Jackets have played well to start 2025. Georgia Tech swept Old Dominion and Western Michigan during the initial wave of non-conference play and has opened its ACC slate with a winning record. The Jackets have taken two out of three games in series at Virginia Tech and home against Pittsburgh, and they come off a 14-6 Tuesday defeat of Gardner-Webb in Atlanta.
Projected for a 10th-place finish by the ACC Preseason Poll, Georgia Tech does just about everything well, especially at the plate. The Yellow Jackets rank second in the ACC in batting average (.332), on-base percentage (.439), slugging percentage (.561) and total runs scored (191). They have been the best base-stealing team in the conference, ripping off 48 bags on 53 attempts.
Sophomore outfielder Drew Burress, the reigning ACC Freshman of the Year, yet again ranks among the conference’s best in a handful of categories. He’s slashing .375./.505/.825 with 12 doubles, eight home runs and 30 RBIs. Burress also enters the weekend on a monstrous tear, as he has four doubles, three home runs and 11 RBIs in his last four games. A year ago, he was also named the D1 Baseball and Perfect Game Freshman of the Year, landing on All-American teams released by both of those publications.
Sophomore infielder Kent Schmidt and junior infielder Kyle Lodise, respective transfers from Georgia Southern and Augusta, complement Burress well in the lineup. Schmidt owns a .415 batting average with 26 RBIs, while Lodise has cranked five home runs as part of a .663 slugging percentage. Freshman two-way player Alex Hernandez has been a major asset as well, pitching six innings while pacing the team in RBIs (31) and hitting seven home runs.
Like Notre Dame, Georgia Tech has a well-defined weekend rotation. Sophomore right-hander Tate McKee (3-0, 2.49 ERA) should get the ball on Friday as he looks to build on his first six-inning effort of the season. Junior righty Brady Jones (2-0, 3.94 ERA), an in-state transfer from Georgia State, should go on Saturday. Expect redshirt sophomore right-hander Riley Stanford (0-0, 5.89 ERA) to take the ball on Sunday.
Overall, Georgia Tech ranks seventh in the ACC in team ERA (4.15) and leads the conference in fielding percentage (.980).
This weekend’s games at Frank Eck Stadium will get underway at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, 2 p.m. on Saturday and 1 p.m. on Sunday.
