After fighting through a long season, N.C. State’s club baseball team’s long awaited goal is in reach. The Wolfpack stands among the final four teams in the National Club Baseball Association World Series.
The team stands at 3-1 in the double elimination tournament and now faces the Penn State Nittany Lions (2-1) in the World Series, to decide who goes to the championship game to play for club baseball’s highest prize.
The Nittany Lions are the No. 1 seed in the World Series, riding an impressive 23 game win streak coming into the tournament. They are also the only team to hand the Pack a loss in the tournament.
There is reason for hope, however. The Pack is the only team that has beaten the Nittany Lions in the World Series thus far, bringing Penn State’s winning streak to an end with a 7-5 win on Tuesday.
State’s opponent in the championship game, should the team get past the 27-2 Nittany Lions, is yet to be determined. Oregon and Colorado State will play for the right to compete in the championship game against the winner of Penn State and N.C. State. Oregon is still unblemished in the World Series. Because the tournament is in a double elimination format, Colorado State must beat Oregon twice to make it to the championship game.
But regardless of its position, the team keeps a very humble attitude. The players know they need to improve to win it all.
“We’ve done [all right]. Our pitching could be better,” relief pitcher Matt Gearheart, a junior in sports management, said.
Chris Hogue, a junior in political science, is the lone standout on N.C. State’s pitching staff. Hogue is eighth in the NCBA with 60 strikeouts, and his nine wins are tied for the tops in the league. But past Hogue, the rotation and bullpen have struggled this season. Only four of the 13 Pack pitchers had lower than a 4.5 earned run average in the regular season, and the team has allowed 40 runs in the four games they have played in the World Series.
State’s offense has kept them in the tournament, however. Chris Lambert, a senior in horticulture, owns a .457 batting average and has 43 RBIs on the season and leads a State lineup that has produced 39 runs in the World Series so far. All of state’s wins in the tournament have been high-scoring including a 14-11 win over Arizona and a 12-11 win over Virginia Tech.
The championship game is tonight at 7:30 p.m. The semifinal matchups between the Wolfpack and Penn State as well as the games between Oregon and Colorado State concluded too late for publication.
