The NC State baseball team dropped the series opener against No. 22 Florida State, 16-7, Friday at Doak Field.
The Wolfpack (16-15, 5-8 ACC) was plagued by a poor performance from the bullpen, which gave up 12 runs, including a 10-run seventh inning. Sophomore Brett Kinneman led the Pack offensively with a two-homerun game. The Seminoles (21-11, 7-6 ACC) got a great outing from first baseman Drew Mendoza, who went 3 for 5 with four RBIs and a run.
“We were never ahead from the sixth inning on,” head coach Elliott Avent said. “We were never ahead in the count. We made three errors and they’ve got a pretty good hitting team. They put 16 hits on us. A lot of things went wrong tonight but that one inning was just a disaster.”
Senior Sean Adler (3-4, 4.17 ERA) picked up the loss for NC State, throwing five innings and allowing four runs on seven hits. The winning pitcher was Cole Sands (5-2, 3.53 ERA), who went six innings and gave up three runs.
Florida State struck first, tallying two runs in the third inning. Adler walked the Seminoles’ Matt Henderson, who came home on a deep triple from Taylor Walls. Dylan Busby drove in Walls with a sacrifice-fly to junior Brock Deatherage in right field, whose throw to the plate was just late.
The Pack answered right back as sophomore Brett Kinneman led off the third with a homerun that barely cleared the fence in right field. Deatherage followed with a bloop double and scored on a hard single off the bat of junior Stephen Pitarra to bring the score to 2-2.
“I felt good at the plate tonight,” Kinneman said. “Got some good pitches to hit, put some good swings on the ball. I’m starting to feel comfortable at the plate again. I struggled for a little bit there, but I’m starting to feel better.”
NC State added another run in the fourth to take the lead, 3-2. McLain led things off with a double. A single from freshman Brad Debo and an RBI groundout by junior Evan Mendoza brought McLain around to score.
The Noles got to Adler in the sixth, putting two runs on the board and ending the starting pitcher’s night. Florida State linked together three-straight hits, with Drew Mendoza driving in two runs with a single up the middle to give the Seminoles a 4-3 lead.
Senior Joe O’Donnell came on in relief of Adler. After allowing a single and giving up a walk to load the bases, O’Donnell got three consecutive outs, including two strikeouts, to end the Seminoles threat.
Florida State blew the game wide open in the seventh inning, scoring 10 runs to widen its lead to 14-3. O’Donnell, freshman Kent Klyman and sophomore Christian Demby combined to allow six hits and walk four batters to fuel the big inning for the Seminoles, who scored six of their runs before NC State recorded an out.
“That next inning everything just fell apart,” Avent said. “Nobody could throw a strike, we were behind the entire inning. Every time I looked up it was three balls. If you look at the percentage of strikes for the pitchers tonight, it was very very low.”
Kinneman connected on his second homerun of the night, crushing a two-run blast over the wall in left field. Junior Shane Shepard led the inning off with a double and scored on the Kinneman homer, bringing the score to 14-5. Avent said that it was rewarding to see Kinneman have such a good night at the plate.
“He’s been working so hard,” Avent said. “He made an adjustment last week in his swing. He had a big night in the middle of the week and then followed that up with a pretty good night tonight.”
The Wolfpack added two more runs thanks to some sloppy play from the Seminoles. After a passed ball on a third strike to McLain extended the inning, Pitarra and freshman Will Wilson both scored on a wild pitch to make the score 14-7. The Noles tallied two more runs in the ninth inning.
“These guys fight so hard,” Avent said. “They came back and fought, but it was that one inning that was a disaster. If you’re going to pitch behind then that’s going to happen to a team like Florida State.”
NC State will look to bounce back on Saturday in game two of the series at Doak Field.
