NC State baseball travels to Charlotte this week to partake in the ACC Championship. With a 28-15 (19-14 ACC) regular season record, the No. 3-seeded Wolfpack is coming into the tournament hot and ready to take down its conference opponents.
The opening days of the ACC Championship consist of pool play, with NC State taking on the 10th-seeded Pittsburgh Panthers this Thursday, May 27 and sixth-seeded UNC-Chapel Hill on Friday, May 28. The team with the best record in NC State’s pool will face off against the Pool B winner in the semifinals.
The Pack is coming off a 2-1 series win against No. 9 Florida State. Although the tough loss Saturday broke its eight-game win streak, the Wolfpack will be back in full force to take on Pitt.
The Panthers (22-19, 16-17 ACC) are coming off a seven-game losing streak and were swept in their series against Wake Forest last weekend. Pitt and NC State already met this season, with the Wolfpack winning the series 3-0. Although Pitt has suffered some brutal losses, it has won a total of seven series this season, including a sweep of then-No. 24 Florida State.
Pitt has three batters hitting above .290: infielder Sky Duff, outfielder Ron Washington Jr. and outfielder Nico Popa. Duff leads the team in hits with 57 and batting averages with .365. Duff and Popa are tied with 33 runs this season. Other players to keep an eye on are outfielder Kyle Hess and infielder David Yanni, who both have 27 runs this season. Hess leads the team in RBIs with 33.
Pitt also has a solid lineup of pitchers including right-handers Chris Gomez, Mitch Myers and Matt Gilbertson. Gomez has the best ERA out of the three with 2.27 over 31.2 innings pitched. Both Myers and Gilbertson have pitched around 76 innings with an ERA of 3.17 and 4.62, respectively. Myers is heavily leading the team in strikeouts with 78 and all three have a total of 74 earned runs collectively.
After taking on Pitt, the Pack will face its rival UNC-Chapel Hill (26-24, 18-18 ACC) in the second game of pool play. UNC and NC State had an earlier matchup this season, with NC State sweeping the Tar Heels in Chapel Hill. Carolina is currently on a two-game losing streak after losing its series with Georgia Tech last weekend.
The Tar Heels have two batters hitting above .300: outfielder Justice Thompson and outfielder Angel Zarate. Thompson is hitting at .321 with 35 runs and 65 hits. Zarate is closely following him at .315 with 28 runs and 51 hits this season. Other standout batters for the Tar Heels are outfielder Caleb Roberts and catcher Tomas Frick and both players are hitting above .250. Of the four star hitters, Roberts is leading in RBIs with 33.
UNC has a solid lineup of pitchers including a trio of right-handers in Gage Gillian, Austin Love and Joey Lancellotti. Gillian has the best ERA out of the three with 1.65 over 43.2 innings pitched. Although Love’s ERA of 3.51 is the highest of the three, he has pitched the most innings of the entire team with 89.2. Lancellotti has pitched the lowest number of innings of the three with 11.0 and a 2.45 ERA with only three earned runs. Love also leads the team in strikeouts with 111.
The ACC Championship is held at Truist Field in Charlotte this week. The pool-play portion of the tournament takes place from Tuesday, May 25, to Friday, May 28, with semifinals on May 29 and the tournament finals on Sunday, May 30. The pool-play games will be aired on regional sports networks, the semifinals will air on the ACC Network and the finals will be broadcast on ESPN2.
