Elliott Avent excited to lead NC State baseball back to NCAA regional
On Thursday, as long-time NC State baseball coach Elliott Avent was walking to the media room for a press conference with redshirt junior pitcher Sam Highfill and junior third baseman LuJames “Gino” Groover III, a sense of excitement overcame Avent. After an unexpected year’s absence, his team is back in the NCAA Championship.
“This never gets old,” Avent recalled telling Highfill and Groover. “I don’t care how many times you’ve been. It’s exciting.”
NC State baseball is the No. 3 seed in a regional hosted by top-seeded South Carolina in Columbia, S.C. Game one for the Pack will be 1 p.m. Friday against second-seeded Campbell. The Gamecocks and fourth-seeded Central Connecticut State have a scheduled 7 p.m. first pitch.
The winners meet Saturday evening, while the losers face each other earlier in the day at noon in an elimination game.
The double-elimination format is one of the reasons why Avent does not think ahead about his pitching.
“I think you manage your pitching not to lose the game … Getting in that loser’s bracket [makes] this tournament become incrementally tougher,” Avent noted. “You’ll manage your staff to try to win any game, and you don’t think about tomorrow. It’s never on your mind.”
NC State starting the regional against Campbell is a bit of irony. The two did not meet in the regular season, which is atypical for Avent.
“We played them every year it seems like since I’ve been here for 27 years,” Avent noted. “We missed each other this year with a scheduling conflict we couldn’t figure out. … We try to stay in North Carolina as much as we can.”
Avent added that he coached Campbell ace and projected starter Cade Kuehler for Team USA and is part of a pitching staff that is “pretty electric.”
The other connection to the Columbia regional for Avent is South Carolina director of athletics Ray Tanner. From 1988-96, Tanner was the head coach of NC State baseball, going 395-173-3 in that span, including 119-87 in the ACC. He made the NCAA postseason in 7 of 9 years before leaving to take the same job at South Carolina.
Tanner would lead the Gamecocks to back-to-back national titles in 2010-11.
Tanner hired Avent as an assistant on Tanner’s first staff with NC State baseball. Avent called Tanner a “special friend,” and added that following Tanner as head coach of the Pack left him “scared to death.”
When Avent received the job at NC State, Tanner was one of his first calls. However, the conversation was brief and perhaps not what some may have expected.
“Don’t screw it up,” Tanner told Avent before hanging up the phone.
“I’ve lived with those words for the rest of my life,” Elliott Avent added.
