The NC State baseball team will be the third seed in the ACC Tournament at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park and will take on tenth-seeded Wake Forest and sixth-seeded Florida State in pool play.
The Wolfpack (41-15, 18-12 ACC) earned its spot as the third-best team in conference play by winning its last two series of the season, taking two of three games each from Clemson and UNC-Chapel Hill.
First up for NC State will be Wake Forest, to whom the Pack dropped two of three games in a road series on Easter weekend.
The Demon Deacons (30-25, 14-16 ACC) enter the ACC Tournament mired in a dry spell since their series win over NC State. Wake Forest is just 3-6 in its last nine ACC games and has struggled on the mound, allowing over eight runs per game during that stretch.
Wake Forest is led offensively by its trio of stars in Bobby Seymour, Patrick Frick and Chris Lanzilli. Seymour is leading the team with a .377 batting average and leads the NCAA in RBIs with 92. Frick is right behind Seymour in batting average, hitting to the tune of a .374 clip with a .474 on-base percentage. Lanzilli, the team’s resident slugger, leads the Deacs in home runs and doubles, with his 16 bombs and 19 two-baggers paving the way for a .637 slugging percentage.
The Deacs will likely trot out ace Colin Peluse against the Wolfpack, who had success in his one game against NC State earlier in the year, surrendering just one run and three hits in six innings of work. Peluse has struggled throughout the season though, with a 5.52 earned run average in a team-high 76.2 innings pitched.
Next up for the Wolfpack will be Florida State, who handed NC State its first loss of the season, breaking up the Pack’s 19-game winning streak with a 7-5 win on March 17 in the final game of a series the Wolfpack won two games to one.
The Seminoles (35-20, 17-13 ACC) enter the tournament winners of four of their last five ACC series and boasting a strong second-half showing, going 16-7 since an April 9 loss to rival Florida.
Robby Martin, Mike Salvatore and Drew Mendoza lead a Florida State lineup that hits .266 with a .398 on-base percentage as a team. Martin is hitting at a .345 clip and leads the team with 49 RBIs. Salvatore is batting .329 with a team-high 73 hits and 19 doubles, and Mendoza leads the team with 14 home runs and 1.073 OPS.
NC State will likely see either CJ Van Eyk or Drew Parrish on the mound. Van Eyk is the Seminoles’ ace and has a 4.05 ERA in a team-high 73.1 innings of work. Parrish has struggled with a 5.07 ERA but is good at missing bats when need be, with 92 strikeouts in 71 innings pitched.
The Wolfpack will likely trot out sophomore right-hander Reid Johnston and junior righty Jason Parker in its two pool-play games. Johnston leads the team with 71 innings pitched and boasts a 3.80 ERA. Parker’s ERA, at 4.04, is only slightly worse, and the tandem of Johnston and Parker has been the Pack’s go-to for the entire season.
NC State will take on Wake Forest at 7 p.m. on Thursday and Florida State at 7 p.m. on Friday. Both games will be televised on ACC Network Extra.
