We figured that the rate at which ‘leaders’ at NC State were resigning that we better open an entry just in case we aren’t around the computer over the weekend!
- NC State’s Men’s Golf team is one of Lee Fowler’s last hopes to earn points and try to help our Athletics program again finish dead last amongst ACC Schools in the annual all-sports Director’s Cup. The golf team is currently 7th (17 strokes off the lead) in the NCAA Tournament’s Central Region being held at The Club at Olde Stone in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The Central Region’s leaderboard can be accessed by clicking here.
- NC State’s Baseball team will finally put an end to one of the school’s worst seasons ever today as we try to avoid a sweep at the hands of Clemson. The Wolfpack will not even qualify for participation in the ACC Tournament. State is so bad that GoPack.com won’t even put the team’s record in game articles. (See write-up from yesterday’s game). Wait. Maybe it is just GoPack.com that is bad.
- We had a great baseball conversation last week that you can review by clicking here. The following are a couple of comments from the conversation from some of the better baseball minds in our community:
This team had major bullpen issues this year. And for a few weeks I think a lot of it had to do with playing 27 innings in one day prior to the Miami series; some may recall we were about to take game 1 of that set and the short pen couldn’t hold it. Baseball, especially pitching, is a funny thing when it comes to confidence. This UNC series may have helped to restore some of that confidence.
Another bullpen issue was moving Gilheeney, who closed last year, into the rotation. The incumbent closer was moved to the rotation the previous year (McConnell) and that worked out, but not so much this year. But, the move worked out well for Gilheeney in that he deomstrated that he is worthy of a draft investment when that time comes around.
A bright spot this season is the freshman class. These kids were really talked up by Holiday, and a lot of these guys have been as advertised. This core, along with the incoming class next year which is quite highly rated, will lay a nice 2-3 year foundation. If Holiday maintains his recruiting, the baseball team should be in great shape in the upcoming years.
There were several question marks coming into the season and a fair amount of turnover.
Overall pitching was an unknown from the start, but no one could have expected the horrendous defense displayed further exacerbating pitching inconsistencies.
This year is an anomaly in an otherwise consistent program. Barring a win against the odds, I’d fully expect to never see another State baseball team lookin’ in from the outside come tourney time.
