Miami Hurricanes baseball cruises past Boston College in ACC tournament quarterfinals

Fabio Peralta, the No. 9 hitter in a stacked Miami Hurricanes lineup, used both his bat and his glove to help UM advance in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. The center fielder and former prep standout at Miami Christian hit his first home run of the season to spark the offense and made a pair of solid grabs in the outfield early as No. 5 seed Miami defeated the No. 4 seed Boston College Eagles 8-2 in an ACC tournament quarterfinal on Thursday at Charlotte’s Truist Field. The Hurricanes (38-17) advance to the semifinals, where they will play the No. 1 seed Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (46-9) at 1 p.m. Saturday for a spot in the conference championship game. Georgia Tech won its second-round matchup against Virginia 16-10 earlier Thursday, scoring 11 runs over the seventh and eighth innings to erase a four-run deficit. The Hurricanes and Yellow Jackets have not yet played this season. For the second consecutive game, Miami fell behind early. Boston College (36-21), which won two of three games against Miami in the regular season to begin ACC play, scored twice against Hurricanes sophomore right-handed pitcher Lazaro Collera in the first inning on a Jack Toomey RBI single and Kyle Wolff RBI double. But as they did on Wednesday in their rout of Stanford to begin tournament action, the Hurricanes responded. Miami used a four-run second inning — highlighted by Peralta’s two-run home run to left field — to take the lead for good. Peralta had a season-high-tying three hits on Thursday and also made a pair of running grabs in center field — first on Julio Solier in the first inning and then on Gunnar Johnson in the second — to rob Boston College of extra-base hits. Alex Sosa added a two-run homer in fourth — his team-leading 17th of the season — to push Miami’s lead to 6-2. The home run gave Sosa 66 RBI on the season, tied with Derek Williams for the team lead. Freshman third baseman Gabriel Milano added an RBI double, his third hit of the game, in the seventh to extend the Hurricanes’ lead to 7-2. A Dylan Dubovik RBI fielder’s choice in the eight made it 8-2. Miami finished with 15 hits overall, and every starting position player safely reached base for a second consecutive game. Collera pitched five innings for Miami, holding Boston College to the two runs in the first inning while giving up three hits, issuing three walks and striking out four. Nick Robert, Jack Durso, Packy Bradley-Cooney and Lyndon Glidewell tossed the final four innings, holding the Eagles to two hits and two walks. Miami’s bullpen, which has struggled most of the season, has yet to give up a run through two games in the ACC tournament. Sophomore right-handed pitcher AJ Ciscar (5-3, 4.06 ERA) will start the semifinal against Georgia Tech.