Couldn’t Be Prouder of Coach Avent and Pack Nine

Baseball54

I hope you saw today’s game, because as opposed to yesterday’s sloppy snoozefest – this was sports drama at its very best. Lightning interrupted a pitcher’s duel, and Coach Avent made the classy, selfless choice and correctly pulled Carlos Rodon. You don’t play Russian Roulette with a left arm that will likely be the #1 overall pick if it stays healthy. Coach Avent showed his “players first” dedication when he firmly and flatly declared that he never even considered returning him to the mound.

Karma owed Avent a good turn, and on several occasions, it looked like he would get it. The Pack Nine came back from 4-0, 6-5, and 7-6 deficits, even ever-so-briefly taking a 5-4 lead. Sadly, the 9-7 10th inning deficit was one run too many, and a terrible third strike call ended NC State’s season.

That said, it’s hard to imagine being more pleased after a gut-wrenching postseason loss. The UConn game Hodge’s freshman year, and this March’s narrow loss to Kansas come to mind. Our Pack Nine battled their asses off, and represented NC State University in sterling fashion. With many key cogs coming back (several of said cogs were freshmen), we have every reason to expect Omaha in our near future. Hell, I might even manage to pay attention before May next season. 🙂

About BJD95

1995 NC State graduate, sufferer of Les and MOC during my entire student tenure. An equal-opportunity objective critic and analyst of Wolfpack sports.

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54 Responses to Couldn’t Be Prouder of Coach Avent and Pack Nine

  1. WolftownVA81 06/11/2012 at 11:49 AM #

    Great game and a great season. Congrats to the coaches and team for a great effort. As stated on this blog before, no quit in this team. Looking forward to next year as opposed to WTNY.

  2. tdouble 06/11/2012 at 12:30 PM #

    Brilliant move by Avent to save best LHP in collge baseball to pitch 3 innings on Sunday. I assume there was no internet access in the Gainsville area as rain was immenent and forecasted for Sunday since at least Wednesday or Thursday. Should’ve pitched Rodon Saturday, way to go down barely using your best pitcher and Golden Spikes nominee. Stellar move!

  3. MP 06/11/2012 at 12:43 PM #

    Hmmm, double T’s… Let me guess, “Trolling Turd”?

  4. tjfoose1 06/11/2012 at 12:47 PM #

    ^ Could be.

    He must not have noticed the forecast for Saturday, and perhaps he’s too stupid to remember Saturday’s extended rain delay.

  5. tjfoose1 06/11/2012 at 12:49 PM #

    “Early projected lineup:

    6 Turner
    5 Ratledge
    3 Canela
    2 Austin
    8 Fincher
    4 Bergquist
    DH Senay
    7 Williams/ or Freshmen
    9 Adamitz”

    Wasn’t Williams arguable the team’s best player coming into the season? Assuming he recovers from the injury, I doubt he’s an “or Freshman” batting in the 8th spot. Right? Or am I missing/forgetting something?

  6. thekind 06/11/2012 at 1:04 PM #

    As much as I dislike Avent and feel that he is a terrible ambassador for NC State baseball, he did make the right decision with Rodon.

    Even with that said, it still is a sad affair that we have Avent leading ANY team that wears NC STATE. He truly is an embarrassment.

  7. PackManSJP 06/11/2012 at 1:14 PM #

    HOW THE HELL IS HE AN EMBARRASSMENT? I wish we were to Carolina’s level of success as well, but do we forget the financial contraints Dr. Yow has said the baseball team was under before she got here?

  8. tdouble 06/11/2012 at 1:27 PM #

    I remember the rain delay Saturday, what 2 1/2 hours after the game started…..

  9. SaccoV 06/11/2012 at 1:40 PM #

    You can fault Avent for many things, at many times, which I PERSONALLY have. TDouble, the ONLY decision that Avent could be questioned on is bringing Tzamtzis first out of the pen after the rain delay. He left Wilkins in to pitch almost 5 full innings (which was the right move and it paid off Wilkins only allowing 1 run). Also, he pinch hit Senay for Ratledge early, but knowing that Florida was going to fastball-curveball relievers, it was the right move. I was fully expecting Avent to manage NC State out of a regional victory in Game 2 against Vandy. He didn’t. Rain was forecast on BOTH Friday and Saturday. Either way, rain became a SIGNIFICANT factor. So, Rodon would have had a short outing whether or not Avent pitched him either day. Pitching Ogburn on Friday was also the right move, as it was a passed ball and another error that cost use 4 runs instead of 1. Rodon has two more years in a State uniform, and this one game isn’t the only Super Regional he’ll be pitching in. Give Avent the credit he earned this time.

  10. Dr. BadgerPack 06/11/2012 at 1:41 PM #

    “I assume there was no internet access in the Gainsville area as rain was immenent and forecasted for Sunday since at least Wednesday or Thursday.”

    He had the same forecast, and probably more information, than I do in the F*ING city I live in. Which was the SAME forecast both days. You can even document the wild shifts in the hourly forecast for Gainesville on Saturday in some of my posts that day. On Friday, the forecast for Saturday- in the CITY I LIVE in, was rain beginning at 11 and continuing off and on all day.

    Some people certainly enjoy taking what was a good post by BJD and spouting off their idiocy based on hindsight.

  11. Dr. BadgerPack 06/11/2012 at 1:42 PM #

    Let’s make everyone happy. Clean house- all coaches with success equal to or less than Avent’s must go, along with him.

    Who’s left?

  12. Dr. BadgerPack 06/11/2012 at 1:52 PM #

    How about questioning game strategy for a change? I was ticked that yet again, Avent pulled the infield in early. That decision probably yielded an extra run.

    Anyway… IF Williams comes back strong, and gets another year, I would think at many times we’ll see a 3-4-5 of Canela-Williams-Rodon. Good lineup balance (L-S-L) so at least a lefty can’t lock in on breaking stuff in the middle of the order. Clyde may be a factor as well.

    Austin is probably ideally a #2 hitter. However, he may hit 7th out of necessity- especially against righties- to spread the lefty bats out somewhat.

  13. wolfbuff 06/11/2012 at 2:10 PM #

    I agree with the sentiment of the original post. The games were managed as well as could be expected. The weather unfortunately kept us from going deep into the game with the best pitcher in college ball. In that sense, it hurt us more than it did UF. Even so, we had plenty of opportunities but Tz got off to a terrible start ater the rain delay and we couldn’t get the shutdown inning we needed in the end.

    As for Avent’s job, he’s done as well as anyone with the limited budget and talent he’s had. It all comes down to talent. He had it this year (coincidentally, he got more recruiting budget last year) and the results speak for themselves. He raised the bar for himself and the program; let’s see if he can clear it. If we can make it back to the super-regionals next year, the experience we had this year will pay off.

  14. Dr. BadgerPack 06/11/2012 at 2:53 PM #

    Also wanted to mention that Fincher did an absolutely outstanding job standing in for Williams after the first game. We missed some of Williams’ bat, but Fincher was more than adequate for what we needed, and played defense at an almost equal level. Although briefly yesterday I caught myself thinking **man, Williams would have had that…** and Fincher nearly got it himself.

    If there are no surprise defections, this will be a really nice team next year.

  15. virginiawolf 06/11/2012 at 3:12 PM #

    I too am very proud of the WOLFPACK team. Until this year I had NEVER watched a college baeball game … I watched them about 12 games ago and was hooked. They provided a lot of excitement and are champions in my mind. I have watched the last pitch of Sunday’s game over twenty times … bottom line is Chris, NCSU and ACC got F*CKED!!!! Thank you to the team and staff, you made us proud. Best of luck to those leaving the team.

  16. patientwuf 06/11/2012 at 3:41 PM #

    “How about questioning game strategy for a change? I was ticked that yet again, Avent pulled the infield in early. That decision probably yielded an extra run.”

    You nalied it. That’s my only beef with Avent-I do question his in game strategy at times(not all the time) and as a team we need to learn how to win the close games and to do that you need to be sound in all areas of the game like Florida and I believe this team under Avent will get to that level. I saw a young/inexperienced team Sunday play their asses off for Avent-can’t question that.

  17. TOBtime 06/11/2012 at 8:47 PM #

    ^^Well said all Dr. BadgerPack. I myself am looking forward to a more offensive team now that the freshman have had a year to see good pitching.

    I couldn’t be more proud of these guys.

  18. 61Packer 06/11/2012 at 8:57 PM #

    I don’t have any problem with the way the team played at Florida this past weekend, and I think Avent did the right thing by not bringing Rodon back after a two and a half hour rain delay. Rodon had pitched 3 innings and had thrown 40 pitches, while Crawford, who did come back, had pitched 2 innings and had thrown only 17 pitches prior to the delay.

    I saw a few instances where State didn’t seem interested in bunting a runner over like I would’ve tried to or had the infield positioned differently than I would have. But those are in-game decisions and I’ll leave those to the coaches.

    My disagreement with Avent is his holding Rodon back when he’s ready to pitch and not having him start a series. No disrespect to Ogburn or any of the other pitchers, but when you’ve got arguably the nation’s best pitcher on your staff rested and ready, why hold him back? I believe if Rodon had started in the Wake game in the ACCT, State would have beaten Wake and might even have won the ACCT. Either of those scenarios, especially winning the ACCT, might have kept the Wolfpack out of Gainesville or even given them a Raleigh Super Regional.

    Not starting a rested and ready Rodon in the first game vs Florida is totally confusing to me. You’ve playing the top-ranked team on their home field, a hitters’ park no less, and the odds are heavily against winning a road series when you go down 1-0. Holding out an unbeaten pitcher in a Super Regional opener to me was throwing in the towel and sending a psychological message to the Pack players that the Pack coaches expected to lose the first game, and therefore wanted Rodon to send the series to a third game.

    I would have gone all-out to have won the first game, which against UF would’ve been an all hands on deck type of game. It’s almost exactly the same type of mentality that I saw from a certain Wolfpack basketball coach who thought every ACC game was as important as the next. At least we now have both football and basketball coaches who seem to understand this, and I’m excited about the future of those two sports. I don’t think the baseball coach does understand this, and that’s why I don’t think Wolfpack baseball is going to get past second base with this staff.

    I hope Tanner makes it 3 in a row.

  19. Wufpacker 06/11/2012 at 9:44 PM #

    “I remember the rain delay Saturday, what 2 1/2 hours after the game started…..”

    On Saturday when the rain delay came, we had a big goose egg on the scoreboard at that point. Assuming Rodon had held UF to one as well, he would have left that game the same way…tied 0-0, and some jack wad on here would be bitching that Avent is an idiot for not holding him back because of the weather…I guarandang-tee it.

  20. elvislives 06/11/2012 at 9:52 PM #

    10 of the Pack’s 20 losses on the year were by 1 run. 7 of their 43 wins were by 1 run.

    Here’s to being better than 7-10 in games decided by 1 run next year.

  21. Wufpacker 06/11/2012 at 10:27 PM #

    ^ Agreed. A year of maturity, especially for a fairly young pitching staff, should help in that regard.

  22. packalum44 06/11/2012 at 10:41 PM #

    You guys really make me smh sometimes. Same outcome,different sport. No acc championship and no cws.

    Wtny. Pathetic we have to be happy about this season. Not satisfied or proud. Work harder.

  23. Wufpacker 06/11/2012 at 10:57 PM #

    Proud and satisfied are two different things.

    EDIT – And implying a young team didn’t work hard enough when they placed four on all ACC, two on all american, two on frosh all american, and quite possibly the national POY as a freshman…a team that overachieved by any sane measure? Really?

  24. elvislives 06/11/2012 at 11:18 PM #

    44, I’m as ready to see the Wolfpack start hanging championship banners as the next fan. But there is a large forest ahead if you can see past those first few trees. This may not be what championships look like but it is definitely what progress looks like. And it has been quite some time since we’ve seen it so pervasive across campus athletics. Enjoy the season, the players and results of this baseball team for what they are – which has been repeated throughout the thread.

    Also, CWTNY (can’t wait till next year) is the appropriate new acronym for Wolfpack athletics.

  25. Dr. BadgerPack 06/12/2012 at 3:57 AM #

    Elvis- those pesky 1-run games are what separates bad-average-good-great. It’s that thin a line (which you probably already knew).

    Part of the problem was Overman’s implosion. He needs to work on either a third pitch, or better slider control- when teams sit on the fastball because he can’t throw the slider for a strike, he can (and did) get clobbered.

    The in-game strategy I quibble over is really in the fine-details. There are guys getting paid millions of dollars to coach, who- like me- hate bringing the infield in. Others always bring it in (guys on both “sides” will be in the HOF). I also hate bunting (SAC) until maybe the 7th inning. Rarely I will do it, but that’s if I know it will be a low scoring game.

    Again, on the weather, the forecasts were essentially the same thing both days. One cannot predict the weather with certainty, either. One thing that was KNOWN with certainty (that has not been brought up yet) is that Saturday’s game began at 2pm… Sunday’s at 1pm.

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