NC State Baseball
The Good, The Bad, The Ugly – State Baseball falls to UNCG 16-13
With this baseball season having not only more ACC matchups, but much sooner meetings (like this Friday versus GT), the hope was that State could take care of business in a few warm-ups before starting the conference grind. That plan lasted two games. Tuesday’s 16-13 loss to UNCG was a tough one to take and, without further ado, our quick hits.
The Good
While it would be easy to start with hitting, seeing we scored 13 runs, a highlight of the day was actually State’s starter, Chris Villaman. The poise of the freshman* was on full display, going three innings, with only one hit while striking out five. He was aggressive and brought the energy that was severely lacking the rest of the game.
*Crazy thinking that all the freshmen had a short test run last year. Hopefully, as is the case for Villaman, the experience can give a better transition into this season.
Austin Murr started the game 5 for 5 with one RBI, making him the first player since Andrew Knizer (2014) to get five hits in a single game. Luca Tresh also had himself a day with 4 RBIs and falling just a triple short of the cycle.
The Bad
Kent Klyman looked to continue his strong senior campaign after picking up a win against Davidson. A fielder’s choice followed by a pair of strikeouts seemed to show that would be the case. Then the wheels fell off. Three runs and a couple walks later, Klyman takes the L.
We thought Devonte Brown might be the breakout player for this State club but ends up going 0-4 at the plate with a walk. While it’s just one game, would have hoped he would have joined the scoring party.
The Ugly
Going to make this fairly simple; The 5th and 7th inning. After State jumped out to a 7-0 lead through four, the pitching and fielding took an ugly turn. UNCG scored SEVEN in the 5th before scoring another SIX in the 7th. As we’ve seen in previous postseason runs, the inability to hold ginormous leads continues to haunt State. Let’s just hope that they get the boogeyman out now, only three games into the season.
See the full box score here at GoPack.com.
ACC action starts Friday for the Wolfpack, as they host Georgia Tech for a three-game series.