The NC State baseball team’s hot streak continued as it came away with a victory over UNC-Wilmington, 6-3, Wednesday at Doak Field.
The Wolfpack (28-21, 11-13 ACC) has now won eight of its last nine games as it looks to earn a berth in the ACC Tournament. Freshman Kent Klyman (1-0, 2.08 ERA) earned the win for the Pack and redshirt junior Joe O’Donnell earned his fifth save of the season, while sophomore Blake Deatherage (0-1, 6.23 ERA) took the loss for the Seahawks (24-24, 12-6 CAA).
“It kind of had a weird atmosphere,” head coach Elliott Avent said. “One, both schools are out of school. Wilmington’s out; we’re out. I thought the energy from both sides of the dugout, I’ve seen more energy in the UNC-Wilmington-NC State games in the past. It was like both teams were going about their business, but I probably expected a little more energy from both sides.”
Senior lefty Sean Adler loaded the bases in the first inning, allowing a hit and a hit by pitch, along with an error by junior Joe Dunand, but was bailed out on a groundout to end the top of the inning. State was unable to muster any runs to finish the first.
After UNCW failed to score in the second, sophomore Brett Kinneman put the Pack on the board with his eighth homer of the season to give the Wolfpack a 1-0 lead.
“New guy coming in, I was just looking for a good pitch I could handle,” Kinneman said. “I got a fastball up, and fortunately I put a pretty good swing on it.”
NC State held Wilmington scoreless again in the third, and got another run when freshman Brad Debo drilled it deep to right-center field to bring junior Andy Cosgrove home. Dunand then sent a sacrifice fly to right field that scored junior Stephen Pitarra to give the Pack a 3-0 lead at the conclusion of the third inning.
The Seahawks’ woes continued as they once again went scoreless and brought out their fourth pitcher in as many innings. Despite this, they proceeded to hold the Pack scoreless in the fourth inning.
“It’s tough, sometimes you’re getting different looks,” Kinneman said. “Sometimes it’s a righty, then a lefty, then another righty. You just kind of stick with your approach regardless of who’s out there on the mound, and you should be alright.”
Adler loaded the bases for the second time of the game after hitting another batter and was promptly replaced by redshirt sophomore Austin Staley in the fifth. However, junior Nick Feight hit a two-RBI single and junior Brian Mims followed that up with an RBI single to tie the game at 3 in the top of the fifth.
Kinneman earned his second hit on the day on a RBI-single that scored junior Josh McLain as the Pack regained the lead, 4-3, at the end of the fifth inning.
“That’s always been real big; when they score, you score,” Avent said. “It’s called answering back. That’s always been real big, and good clubs do that. You try to score every inning, so it’s not like you try and do anything different, maybe it’s a little different mentality. When they got those three runs with two outs and nobody on, the bloop double and then the hit batter, I think our guys thought those runs shouldn’t have scored. I was really proud of our guys to bounce back that next inning.”
Klyman entered the game in the sixth and pitched a clean inning to maintain the lead for the Wolfpack. Junior Evan Mendoza then scored on a passed ball and Cosgrove hit a solo homer to extend the lead to 6-3.
“We started off the season slow, and I don’t think we had the fight at the beginning that we do now,” Cosgrove said. “I think it seems like it’s a completely different program. We’re now the team that when they score, we bounce back with a run it seems like every time. At the beginning of the season, it was kind of like we’d get down by a little bit and it’s ‘Oh no,’ and I didn’t think at one point that we were going to lose that game tonight. I think it’s just kind of a different feeling throughout the entire clubhouse.”
The game went scoreless from there as State held on for the crucial win.
The Wolfpack travels to Pittsburgh for its final road series of the regular season starting Friday at 6 p.m.
