Marty Gordon
NRVsports@mainstreetnewspapers.com
Junior shortstop Sam Szefc has grown up on or around a baseball field for most of his life. So, it was no surprise one of the state’s top players committed early to play for Virginia Tech.
Of course, the Blacksburg High School player is very familiar to Tech’s head coach, John Szefc, who is his father.
As a sophomore, Szefc (the baseball player) hit .452, scored nearly 30 runs, had a .98 earned run average with a seven to one strikeout to walk ratio and threw a perfect game.
Against Franklin County last week, he was four-of-five at the plate with two doubles and a three-run homer. Also, a week earlier, Szefc was three-for-three at the plate with two home runs and seven runs batted in, including a seventh inning grand slam that gave Blacksburg a 12-8 win over host Lord Botetourt.
John Szefc was the 2022 ACC Coach of the Year and ABCA/ATEC Atlantic Regional Coach of the Year. He leads the Virginia Tech baseball program in 2025 during his eighth season as head coach (his 20th head coaching season overall). He was hired by Virginia Tech director of athletics Whit Babcock on June 9, 2017, following five defining seasons as the head baseball coach at Maryland.
Szefc has coached his teams to 14 seasons of 30-plus victories, including four 40-win campaigns. He has guided three NCAA Division I programs to eight combined Regional appearances – Marist (1997, 2000-02), Maryland (2014, 2015, 2017), Virginia Tech (2022) – while advancing his clubs to three Super Regionals – Maryland (2014, 2015), Virginia Tech (2022).
Through 20 head coaching seasons, Coach Szefc has achieved a performance record of 615-433-3. This year, Tech is 26-21 overall.
Sam started the fall as Blacksburg’s quarterback, but a serious injury shut down his season. Up to that point, he had thrown 45-of-73 passes for 639 yards with four touchdowns. He also rushed for 319 yards on 38 attempts with seven more touchdowns.
Last week his brother, John Michael Szefc (Class of ’26) who played at the Miller School for the past two years, also signed a letter of intent to play at Virginia Tech. So, Coach Szefc will have both his sons playing for the Hokies.
