NC State Baseball Did NC State Things and Now I’m Crushed

As I write this I’m not angry. Honestly, it’s truly a mixed bag of heartbreak and confusion.

If you would have told me that Willadsen and Villaman combined for a complete game, 12 K, 2 BB, 4 H and one, ONE FREAKING RUN ON A SAC FLY, I would have bet all my money on State. Add onto that the top four batters had hits, the team played perfect defense and Duke had two errors in one inning, I would have bet all my money, plus every available organ in my body.

And yet…here we are…

Duke, for the first time ever is ACC Champs. Also for the first time, an ACCT Championship ended with a 1-0 score. Furthermore, for the first time this season, State was held scoreless. What are the f*cking chances?

You have to feel for Murr who scores on 99 out of a 100 times that same play happens. This is one of those awful scenarios that if that were to have occurred in any of the previous 400+ innings, it’s shrugged off. But it’s just something that can’t happen in the Championship Game. And I know that people are going to go crazy over the decision to have Tatum bunt, but in all honesty, you hope he can lay one down like he had multiple times this year FOR HITS. Sure, you could let him swing, but the way things were going, would have been a double play one batter sooner. Mind as well try and get Butler over.

There really isn’t much to say from a game perspective…It was all pitching and one sac fly. Neither team was particularly impressive, outside of four pitchers.

What really hurts is a two-parter;

1. We now get to see that damn graphic talking about the three marquee men’s sports not winning an ACC Championship since 1992.
2. We now add yet another school to the ACC Champions list over Avent’s 25 years at the school. Oh and Notre Dame at least can say they won the regular season title…

What Now?

Where do we go from here? It’s easy. We are a #2 seed in the NCAA Tournament and just hope that pitching does what they did this week and that this is the literal worst we could ever hit. I hope that this team remains in “business first” mode and only uses this to make an extra special run. If they can’t make it to Omaha, this season has somehow turned into yet another wasted opportunity. Which I feel ridiculous typing out, since at 1-8, if I were told ACCT Championship appearance, I would have taken in a heartbeat.

Avent and the boys have proved that they can be a great club, just need them for once to win the last game.