The second loss to the Charlotte 49ers in the Columbia, S.C., Regional eliminated the baseball team from the NCAA Tournament, ending its season.
After dropping the opening game to Charlotte 6-3 on Friday, Tropical Storm Barry canceled play on Saturday. N.C. State returned to play on Sunday knowing it needed two wins on the day to keep its season alive.
After holding on for a 10-6 win over Wofford, the team headed back to the hotel to rest up before coming back a few hours later for another meeting with the 49ers.
The 12-10 loss suffered by the Wolfpack was the program’s seventh consecutive loss to a No. 3-seed in Regional competition.
“When you go into postseason play, I don’t think you sit around and contemplate who you lost to — when you lose, you lose,” coach Elliott Avent said. “That’s why you need to be a 1-seed.”
Even more puzzling than that statistic was the offensive output of the team going unrewarded. Despite scoring double-digit runs in consecutive games for only the second time all year, the Pack came up short of advancing further.
“We started out with a very pitching-rich club,” Avent said. “It was good a lot of the year, and maybe not as good down the stretch, but if you told me we were going to score double-digit runs in a Regional, I’d tell you we’re going to play for a Super Regional and probably a great chance to go to Omaha.”
Ten runners left on base didn’t help State’s cause, and neither did Charlotte’s offense, as the 49ers tagged two N.C. State pitchers — Jimmy Gillheeney and Jeff Stallings — for seven runs in the first two innings to take a 7-0 lead.
It was a surprising start, considering the 49ers hadn’t even left the field after losing 12-8 to South Carolina in the game before. In desperation, Avent put in redshirt sophomore Eryk McConnell.
McConnell had the lowest ERA on the team this year, but was used as a closer. He came in for the start of the third and gave up five runs over the next seven innings — by far his longest outing this year.
“My second longest was 4 1/3,” McConnell said. “To go out like that after being a closer, it was kind of cool to throw distance like a starter. It was definitely interesting.”
The Pack did attempt to make things close, scoring four runs in the bottom of the third to make the game competitive once again at 8-4, but Charlotte answered with a two-run blast by Chris Taylor — his second of the game.
Two homers in the fifth from Ryan Pond and Caleb Mangum brought State back to within three at 10-7. Charlotte tacked on two more to make it 12-7 before a three-run moon shot from designated hitter Mike Roskopf in the bottom of the eighth.
Ironically, when the Pack’s Joe Florio, Dallas Poulk and Marcus Jones went down in order in the bottom of the ninth with the season on the line, it was the only inning all night in which the Pack sent up only three batters.
State went 38-23 on the year, but Avent noted that his team improved dramatically as the year went along.
“At the end of April and the beginning of May we were playing our best ball of the year, and then some things happened down the stretch with injuries and things that did kind of take its toll,” Avent said. “But I think that was a very good baseball team.”
State finished its season without getting a start from Andrew Brackman in the final three weeks due to a combination of bereavement and elbow soreness.
