It's Championship Sunday at the #ACCBase Tournament. @NCStateBaseball vs @FSU_Baseball at the DBAP. Who ya got? pic.twitter.com/p4Iqf6w70m
— Durham Bulls (@DurhamBulls) May 24, 2015
Today COULD be a very special day for NC State Athletics and for one of our very own, Elliot Avent, as the Wolfpack baseball program seeks its sixth overall ACC baseball championship and its first since 1992.
While Coach Avent has delivered consistent results in his 19 years as skipper of the #Pack9, he has yet to deliver much by way of ‘peak’ success over almost two decades. Despite advancing to 14 NCAA Tournaments over the last two decades (including this year), Avent’s Wolfpack has never finished first in an ACC regular season, advanced to only one College World Series, and has never never won an ACC Championship (after losing in four previous advancements to the Championship round). NC State last reached the ACC Baseball Championship title game in 2010 at Greensboro, N.C., where we dropped an 8-3 decision to FSU.
Another approach to comparing Coach Avent’s ‘peak’ success to that of our conference rivals would be to look at number of College World Series appearances by the programs in the ACC since Avent took the reigns at NC State in 1996:
* Miami has attended 8 CWS
* Clemson has attended 5 CWS
* Georgia Tech has attended 2 CWS
* UNC-CH has attended 6 CWS
* Florida State has attended 6 CWS
* Virginia has attended 3 CWS
* NC State has attended 1 CWS
and
* Ray Tanner’s South Carolina has attended 6 CWS
While the overall NC State Athletics Department is in INFINITELY better overall condition than it was the last time Avent advanced to the Championship round in 2010, State’s ‘big four’ sports have continued to languish in a championship drought that can’t help but frustrate fans and boosters that pour so much of their time, energy and money into supporting the Wolfpack. NC State’s last ACC Championships in major sports are as follows:
Football – 1979
Men’s Basketball – 1987
Women’s Basketball – 1991
Baseball – 1992
So…today…Coach Avent has a chance to deliver success to the school he loves more than anything, has a chance to end a TWENTY THREE YEAR DROUGHT of championships in the four major sports in a game played in his own backyard. Good luck, Elliot!!!
