NC State drops home midweek contest vs. Campbell in extra innings
It has been an up and down month of April for NC State, which lost five straight before taking a weekend series at No. 2 Clemson four days ago. It appeared its sluggish play as the Pack found itself down five runs in the eighth inning when the Wolfpack hosted Campbell for a midweek contest Tuesday night.
But the red and white’s late rally against the Camels fell short in extra innings. NC State stormed back to tie the game in the final two frames before Campbell scored three runs in the 12th to win it 11-7 at Doak Field.
“It’s a loss,” NC State coach Elliott Avent said postgame. “That’s it. It’s a loss.”
The Wolfpack finished the night with 12 hits, paced by Chase Nixon and Garrett Pennington’s three-hit nights. Pennington led the way with a pair of RBI, while Alec Makarewicz and Eli Serrano III both hit homers in the defeat.
NC State rallied, but a key missed opportunity hurt
While the Wolfpack was able to claw back from nearly a half-dozen run deficit in the final two innings of the game, it did not take full advantage of what it had in front of itself.
NC State scored four runs in the fourth, led by Pennington’s two-RBI single, to flip the game on its head and get within one run of Campbell. A solo shot to lead off the bottom of the ninth from Serrano to tie the contest at 7 runs a piece.
But then came the unfortunate event. NC State loaded the bases with two outs shortly after the home run from the Pack’s center fielder, but it could not convert. Makarewicz, the team’s hottest hitter as of late, struck out swinging to leave the bases juiced.
That ended up hurting the Wolfpack as the Camels were able to manufacture a four-run 12th inning to pull away from NC State.
In all, the Wolfpack stranded 19 runners on the base paths. It was not confined to one part of the order, either. Brandon Butterworth, the Pack’s six-hole hitter, left five on the base paths, while Luke Nixon, the leadoff hitter, Makarewicz stranded four while they were at the plate each.
Quick turnaround coming up
The loss set NC State back to 20-14 on the season before arch-rival North Carolina arrives in Raleigh to kickoff a three-game series Thursday night.
With a pivotal three-game series at home just two days away, NC State had to be smart with its late-game pitching changes. The Wolfpack used nine arms in the game and none of the relievers threw more than 36 pitches as Avent tried to save his staff for the Tar Heels.
Afterwards, he was not pleased with having to turn around and play a top-10 RPI team in North Carolina in less than 72 hours.
“I don’t like the quick turnarounds,” Avent said. “I’m against Thursday night games, I’m against 8 o’clock at night games in the ACC. I’d like to see the ACC figure out what they’re doing, but I’m against the Thursday games. If you try to get good RPI games and get wins for your league then you don’t play Thursday, Friday, Saturday because you don’t have your pitching for Tuesday.”
The Pack opted to use three of its back end of the bullpen pitchers in Win Scott, Carson Kelly and John Miralia in extra innings, a group that combined to throw 10 innings to this point in the season. Hollis Fanning, a more frequently used reliever at 14.2 innings going into the contest, only threw seven pitches in his brief appearance.
Avent was focused on setting the Wolfpack up for a league series and appeared to be frustrated that he could not rely on his key bullpen arms to win the midweek game.
“We had nobody,” Avent said. “You can’t burn pitching to win this game with Carolina [on] Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I hope the ACC will figure that out.”
