No. 17 NC State sweeps No. 8 Wake Forest, secures 3-seed in ACC Tournament

In the early stages of No. 17 NC State’s series finale with No. 8 Wake Forest, it seemed like the Wolfpack’s Sunday struggles had arrived on a Saturday. The red and white entered the final game of the regular season 3-5 in the third game of an ACC series this season, and it appeared that statistic was going to ring true again.

NC State trailed 5-1 after the first four innings, including an uncharacteristic error by right fielder Noah Soles. Graduate righty Logan Whitaker battled, but the Demon Deacons were seeing a bigger baseball than the Pack was against Josh Hartle. 

Then, well, the Wolfpack found a way. Two home runs later, NC State tied the game in the sixth inning, building momentum on a sunny day in Raleigh. A pair of frames later, graduate first baseman Garrett Pennington hit a bases-clearing double to push the red and white ahead for the first time. 

That was all the Pack needed to knock off the Demon Deacons 9-6 at Doak Field, securing NC State’s first series sweep over Wake Forest since 2018. 

“This is a team you can’t give any edge to because they’re so good,” NC State coach Elliott Avent said of the Wolfpack’s early deficit. “But we stuck with it. … Everyone’s waiting for something to happen and there were some great at-bats in the eighth inning.”

Freshman reliever Ryan Marohn earned the win with one earned run allowed on five hits with one walk and four strikeouts across four innings. Sophomore closer Derrick Smith, meanwhile, finished the game by striking out the side in the ninth. 

The Wolfpack was paced by Pennington and junior catcher Jacob Cozart going a combined 4-for-10 with six RBI, a double and a home run. 

NC State was down early, but the dugout started to bring life to the group. A Pennington RBI single in the fifth started to bring the Wolfpack’s energy levels up before Cozart clubbed a three-run homer to right field. 

Cozart, who had not hit well for much of the weekend, fed off his teammates waving towels on the bench to help bring the Wolfpack back into the contest. He got the better of Hartle, a pitcher he has faced countless times in the last five years, in his last at-bat against the lefty. 

“You make in-game adjustments,” Avent said of Cozart’s pivotal at-bat. “I think ‘Cozy’ did a great job. It seemed like he was swinging at everything all weekend. … You make those with more experience, more at-bats, and he made a big-time adjustment to hit the ball that tied it up.”

Like Cozart, it seemed like NC State’s entire batting order found its groove in the back half of the game. That propelled the Wolfpack to the come-from-behind win. 

“Arguably, we play our best baseball towards the end,” Cozart said. “Usually it’s the opposite, but this team plays better and better as the game goes on. We just never give up, we always know there’s a chance.”

The Wolfpack has had to believe the entire season. It lost a starting pitcher on the first day of practice before battling illness and injury seemingly every day since. That has not fazed the red and white as it has won five ranked ACC weekend series along the way. 

NC State’s latest iteration of the weekend series win, however, was its most impressive. It swept Wake Forest in three different ball games — a slugfest Thursday night, a walk-off walk Friday and a comeback win to seal the regular season. 

That breeds confidence in the dugout, and the Wolfpack appears to be riding that high heading to the ACC Tournament in the Queen City next week. 

But when the Pack gets to Truist Field for the postseason, it will not have to change its mentality. It has treated each game like the Wolfpack’s season has been on the line and it has worked the entire way. 

Why stop now?

“We’re taking it one game at a time and treating it like our last,” Marohn said. “We’re just going to hopefully go out there, do our job and win.”

NC State will know that it can hang with any team there after taking series from the top five teams in the league not wearing Wolfpack red. Cozart, one of the team’s leaders behind the plate, believes that it doesn’t matter what the score is in a game — NC State will have a chance to win.

“We’re just playing like we’re the best team out there,” Cozart said. “This team, we’re resilient. I don’t care what the score is going into the backend of the game — I feel like we have a shot.”

That was the mindset that helped the Wolfpack complete the sweep against the Demon Deacons. Now, it’s time to see it travel to Charlotte as the team chases its first ACC Tournament title since 1992.