Wolfpack defeat Tarheels on the diamond

07-08 Basketball Baseball12

We had in depth comments in yesterday’s entry…so, we needed to stay on top of baseball. State comes from behind in the diamond to beat Carolina in something! Wolfpack 8 Tarheels 6

The Wolfpack, which improved to 15-9 overall and 5-6 in the ACC, carried a 2-2 tie into the bottom of the sixth inning, only to have the baseball gods conjure up a four-run inning for the Tar Heels on three hits, two walks, two wild pitches, a sacrifice bunt and a balk against starter Eric Surkamp and reliever Jake Buchanan. That gave North Carolina a 6-2 lead, but the Wolfpack rallied against the leading pitching staff in the conference, scoring three runs in the seventh and three more in the eighth to hand UNC only its second loss in its last 12 games.

Carolina is now 21-5 overall and 8-3 in the ACC.

It is sadly ironic that Lee Fowler’s Athletics Department finally beat Carolina at something on the same day that the Carolina Basketball team advanced to their 17th Final Four to further accentuate the chasm between their athletics department and Fowlers’ department in Raleigh.

Let’s hope that yesterday’s big win on the diamond can serve as the catalyst to get the baseball season back on track for Coach Avent and the Wolfpack.

As SaccoV stated in the comments section of a previous entry:

I thought this baseball team was supposed to be an offensive juggernaut. Again, the SID has made sure that everyone knows how powerful our offense is, so much so that we’re LAST in the ACC in batting average, last in Slugging, last in OBP, last in hits, last in runs scored, etc. We’ve got good pitching this year. which helps when you lose by three runs or less against good teams. Avent was not ready to coach this team. We’re an average college baseball team in a superior baseball league. No chance of significant improvement.

We also want to reference the first post in the comments section below that details how difficult the Wolfpack’s schedule as been to this point in the season. In light of Coach Avent’s failure to post some kind of acceptable defining accomplishment in his decade-plus tenure in Raleigh, we all hope that this year’s version of Wolfpack baseball can finally deliver something to brag about.

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07-08 Basketball Baseball

12 Responses to Wolfpack defeat Tarheels on the diamond

  1. Lunatic Fringe 03/30/2008 at 9:41 AM #

    I guess BEFORE we all throw in the towel on the baseball team we need to realize that NC State is the only team in the conference that has teams ranked in the top 30 as ACC opponents so far in this early season.

    We have had the toughest schedule so far. We have been able to win one series and swipe 1 win from each of our ranked opponents. WF has had a pretty tough one as well so that means to me that the next series vs. WF is EXTREMELY important.

    It is not the end of the world, but we HAVE to win series vs. teams like Duke, VT, BC, and Maryland.

    * Currently ranked in top 30 (USA Today College Baseball Poll)

    NCSU
    Played – UVA*, Miami*, Clemson*, UNC* (current series)
    Left To Play – WF, Duke, VT, BC, Maryland, FSU*

    FSU
    Played – Maryland, GT*, VT, WF (current series)
    Left To Play – UVA*, BC, Miami*, Clemson*, UNC*, NCSU

    WF
    Played – Clemson*, Maryland, Miami*, FSU* (current series)
    Left To Play – NCSU, VT, UVA*, GT*, Duke, BC

    Clemson
    Played – WF, BC, NCSU, Maryland (current series)
    Left To Play – Miami*, UNC*, Duke, VT, FSU*, GT*

    A look at the rest of the conference:
    UVA has played: Duke (lost series), NCSU (lost series) BC, & VT
    UNC has played: Duke, VT, Maryland, NCSU (1-1 in current series)
    Miami has played: BC, NCSU, WF, Duke
    GT has played: VT, FSU, Duke, BC

  2. SaccoV 03/30/2008 at 9:42 AM #

    Thanks for the love. If anyone wants to check the stats and rankings, I found them here at theacc.com. My link skills aren’t what they used to be. Hope you’re right about this win being a turnaround. My pessimism these days is too thick.

  3. SaccoV 03/30/2008 at 10:01 AM #

    I agree that our schedule has been a tough one, as has WFU’s. The problem is, I don’t buy it. We knew that we were going to face Clemson, UNC, FSU, Virginia in the first portion of the conference schedule, so there’s no reason to suspect that we can’t win 65-75% of those games.

    I think the part that’s most embarrassing to all of us is that we’ve allowed not only UNC-CH, but also UVA to significantly put themselves in a better national position over the last 5 years. We know that Miami, Ga Tech, FSU, and Clemson are always going to have national presence in baseball. But we’ve let two other state-run universities build powerhouses while we’ve erected a monument to mediocrity in this league. That’s frustrating.

  4. RickJ 03/30/2008 at 10:09 AM #

    Great comments by both Lunatic Fringe and SaccoV. Believe it or not, there are people out there that do RPI’s for college baseball. There is one at boydsworld.com/baseball/ that currently has NC State at number 12. With a 15 – 9 overall record, this highlights the difficulty of the schedule we have played to date. I would assume the NCAA does an RPI as well and uses it the same way in the tournament selection process as basketball.

  5. SaccoV 03/30/2008 at 10:25 AM #

    RickJ, don’t you think his high RPI rating is an indication of playing in a tough conference? It’s not that State played, or will play, any significant OOC games (Louisville? ECU is perhaps the only “tough” OOC series scehduled, and they’re down this year because of Mazer getting fired!). Once again, it seems we’re playing the “We-Play-In-A-Tough-Conference” card, and unless you win a significant portion of those games (more than .600), I’m not sold on the RPI.

  6. Lunatic Fringe 03/30/2008 at 12:23 PM #

    BTW…I was in no way, shape, or form making any excuses for Avent. I just believe there is a lot of season left before we make conclusions. The conference, baskeball scheduling de-ja-vu, did not do us any favors with our schedule this season.

    Now…as for Avent…the frustrating thing about the baseball program is not just the fact that we have fallen since we lost a VERY GOOD coach to South Carolina, but that we have let FANTASTIC assistants leave the conference to create national powers.

    Clemson’s staff over the last 10 years has been nothing but extraordinary. Jack Leggett is not only a great coach, but has also developed some great assistants.

    Tim Corbin @ Vanderbilt basically took a nothing program and made them a top 10 team in 9 years at the school.

    Kevin O’Sullivan @ Florida has made that program relevant again and has them pin the top-25 again in his first year. BTW…I think O’Sullivan is going to be a fantastic hire and will have Florida in the top 10 very soon.

  7. Pack92 03/30/2008 at 12:34 PM #

    Agreed on Avent LF. He has just never seemed to be able to turn the corner. When we were 2 outs away in Coral Gables against Miami for a trip to the CWS I thought it was going to happen. I also thought it would happen against Alabama a few years ago for the same trip. Sooner or later, as with another prior NCSU coach we discuss regularly, you just quit believing they will ever get over the hump and recognize them for the good but never great coach they really are. The kind that will be here forever in a foul-up administration.

  8. SaccoV 03/30/2008 at 12:47 PM #

    Avent has had two chances in the ACC tournament final to win; his teams, like Sendek, blew leads late. I believe there is an archived entry on this somewhere in the vault comparing the two. The game should be starting and I’m heading over to ACCSelect to watch. Go Pack!

  9. RickJ 03/30/2008 at 1:14 PM #

    “RickJ, don’t you think his high RPI rating is an indication of playing in a tough conference? It’s not that State played, or will play, any significant OOC games”

    SaccoV – The 12th place RPI is a current rating based only on the 24 games we have played so far. It highlights what a tough schedule we have played to date – it has to one of the toughest in the country because nobody else with 9 losses is anywhere close to being as high in the RPI as we are. This RPI has nothing to do with who we are going to play in the future. Our OOC games are plenty good with the conference schedule we play. Louisville, ECU & UNC-W are very good baseball programs.

  10. Wxwolf 03/30/2008 at 2:37 PM #

    Unfortunately, today’s rubber match was rained out, and will not be made up.

  11. SaccoV 03/30/2008 at 2:37 PM #

    I agree with you and LF that we have played a tough in-conference set of games so far. However, losing two in-a-row at Clemson (whom you were up 2-0 on in the 8th inning of Game 2), and dropping the series against Miami at home, and having now split (because of the cancellation) with UNC is fair, but not were a 9th-year coach should be. High RPI, that’s wonderful. But our basketball team had an RPI in the 30s this season. The point is, you have to win. Beating great teams makes you a great team. I’m still hearing too much of the “We’re-Doing-OK” attitudes in our sports. We should be winning these games and placing ourselves at the FRONT of the ACC regardless of how tough it is. There’s a reason that Leggett, Fox, and Tanner have gone from good to great, and that’s because they WIN. They beat tough opponents; they win series and sweep series against top competition. We seem to cheer loudly if we take ONE game from UNC in a 3-game set. We win 1 from Miami at home and act like we’ve acheived something.

  12. packfan4ever 03/30/2008 at 3:29 PM #

    UVA in a better national position than us? We have won every series against tham since I have started following NCSU baseball (since 2003). As far as UNC having a better national position, that has only come about in the last 2 seasons. Before the 2006 and 2007 seasons, we won series against them regularly since ’03.

    Let the season play itself out before you start complaining. Jeez.

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