NC State baseball advances to rivalry showdown for ACC title
For the second straight year, NC State baseball will play in the ACC Championship against a Tobacco Road rival. Last year, Duke topped the Pack, 1-0. This year, the showdown will be versus archrival North Carolina.
The two teams will meet at noon in Charlotte’s Truist Field in a game televised on ESPN2 following NC State’s 8-3 win over Pittsburgh and UNC’s 7-2 triumph against Notre Dame during Saturday’s semifinals doubleheader.
NC State baseball used a power surge for a second straight game, launching three first-inning homers to go up 5-0 in the bottom half of the frame.
Senior centerfielder Devonte Brown led off with a blast to right-center. Two batters later, freshman designated hitter Tommy White crushed a 412-foot bomb to right center for a solo shot, and in the process he established a new NCAA record for home runs by a freshman (27).
Sophomore left fielder Dominic Pilolli finished the damage off with a two-run bomb to right, the longest blast of the three.
Super senior lefty Canaan Silver made it hold up. Silver tossed 5.2 innings, giving up two unearned runs on five hits and a pair of walks while striking out seven.
Silver gave way to sophomore righty Justin Lawson, who labored through 2.1 innings, allowing four hits and three walks, but the only run scored was a long solo homer by Pittsburgh left fielder Ron Washington Jr.
After the first two runners reached for Pittsburgh in the ninth, sophomore lefty Chris Villaman came out of the pen and struck out three in a row to end the victory.
The trip to the title game is the seventh in Elliott Avent’s 26-year tenure as NC State baseball coach, but Avent, who has led the Pack to a pair of College World Series appearances, has yet to prevail in the conference championship game.
This will be the first time that Avent has faced North Carolina in the title match.
UNC is 37-19 overall and set to host a regional in the NCAA Tournament after going on a hot streak that started with a series win at NC State in Raleigh.
North Carolina won game one and three of the series by one run each, scoring the winning run in the ninth in the first and hitting a two-run, go-ahead homer in the eighth in the second.
UNC is 14-2 in its last 16 games, one of those defeats being a 9-2 loss to the Wolfpack in Raleigh. The Heels have won six in a row, the last five by at least five runs.
NC State baseball improved to 36-20 with the win and continues to improve the Pack’s own stock for the NCAA Tournament that will be revealed Monday. D1Baseball.com’s mock bracket Saturday had NC State rising to a No. 2 seed.
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