No. 13 NC State baseball defeated the Stanford Cardinal 7-2 on Friday night at Doak Field.
The Wolfpack (34-16, 17-9 ACC) came in looking to end the regular season on a high note in its final series and work toward clinching the top seed in the ACC. The easiest way for it to achieve that is to sweep Stanford (25-24, 9-19 ACC), and for No. 2 Florida State to not sweep No. 4 North Carolina.
“I feel like we’re not really thinking about the fact that we need to win,” said freshman center fielder Ty Head. “I think we’re just having fun and it’s just one game at a time, and we’re all trying to do our jobs.”
The game started slow for the Wolfpack at the plate, but its pitching kept it in the game. In the bottom of the fifth, it trailed 2-0 when junior third baseman Matt Heavner hit a sacrifice fly giving freshman first baseman Brandon Novy an opportunity to score and the Pack its first run of the game. It then scored two more runs off a triple from senior shortstop Justin DeCriscio, giving it a 3-2 lead at the end of the inning.
The Pack got hot again in the 7th with a three run homer by Head and a missile over the center field fence by Novy in the next at-bat. With this, it now led 7-2, and freshman reliever Anderson Nance came in and closed the door on the Cardinal. Head amassed quite the highlight reel in the seventh, after not only hitting the three-run homer, but also making a spectacular diving catch in the outfield to save an extra-base hit.
“We’ve made some great plays all year,” said head coach Elliott Avent. “You got to play defense to win. In any sport, you have to play defense, but when that ball was hit, I had a good angle on it and I just thought there was no way he’s going to get there. We’ve had a lot of great center fielders here, but he’s one of them, and he’s a rookie. That’s one of the two best catches I’ve seen this year.”
Sophomore pitcher Ryan Marohn started on the mound, going 5.1 innings and giving up two earned runs. Nance followed him up with 3.2 shutout innings. They combined for six strikeouts and gave up seven hits, not outstanding numbers, but held the Cardinal offense at bay throughout the game.
“I was so proud of the team tonight, and I was proud of them all year, of how they’ve grown, and where the team has come from, from where they were,” said Avent. “But the thing I was most proud of, if you think about it, we hadn’t been on a baseball field in a game since Friday against Carolina. We played Thursday against Carolina, we hadn’t really had practice since last Wednesday.”
Not long after this game concluded, North Carolina defeated Florida State 8-3, meaning that the Pack now controls its own destiny in its chase for ACC regular season title. All it has to do to secure its first regular season conference title since 1986 is sweep Stanford and win the final two games of the series. If the red-and-white achieves this, it will also secure the top overall seed in the ACC Tournament. The Pack is on pace to host an NCAA Regional when the time comes, so the main focus of this team is Stanford and transitioning into the ACC Tournament.
The Wolfpack will play its next game against the Cardinal on Friday, May 16 in Raleigh. First pitch is slated for 6 p.m.
