NC State baseball weekend preview: ACC favorite comes to Doak

Make no mistake about it, the ACC schedule for NC State baseball is front loaded. Thus far, the Pack has played three ranked conference foes. The next two series, after which NC State will have reached the halfway point of league play, are against two top-15 teams who happened to be the preseason ACC favorites.

That starts this weekend vs. Louisville in Raleigh.

The teams will play at 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and noon Sunday. Saturday’s game will be on ACC Network and Sunday’s contest can be seen on ESPNews. The series opener can be viewed online with ACC Network Extra.

Here is a preview of the NC State baseball series vs. Louisville.

NC State Baseball Weekend Rotation

NC State baseball coach Elliott Avent is going with the same rotation he has used every weekend series of the year.

Redshirt junior righty Logan Whitaker has thrown 30.2 innings in six series-opening starts, surrendering 29 hits and 14 earned runs with just 5 walks and fanning 26. He has a 4.11 earned run average (ERA).

Junior righthander Matt Willadsen will go game two. In 6 starts, Willadsen has given up just 24 hits and 10 walks over a team-high 36.1 innings while allowing 7 earned runs (1.73 ERA) and striking out a staff-best 36.

Game three starter is freshman lefty Dominic Fritton. He has tossed 30.0 innings over 6 starts, allowing 19 hits and just 4 earned runs for a 1.20 ERA. He’s walked nine and fanned 33.

Scouting Louisville

Louisville and Wake Forest were the co-favorites in the preseason ACC baseball coaches’ poll, with each receiving 6 of 14 votes to win the league.

The Cards have done little prior to playing NC State baseball this weekend to dissuade those preseason thoughts. Ranked No. 11 in the latest D1Baseball.com poll, Louisville’s only hiccup on the year was dropping a pair of 1-run games last weekend in a series at Notre Dame.

The Cards beat previously ranked TCU and Texas A&M, both in Houston, and also knocked off Michigan in the same venue. Louisville started ACC play by taking 2 of 3 from Georgia Tech at home.

Louisville is a well-rounded baseball team and has traditionally had the Wolfpack’s number, going 17-5 against NC State all-time.

The Cards are fifth in the ACC in batting average (.310) and on-base percentage (.420), but they do not hit for a lot of power. Louisville is ninth in the conference in homers and 10th in doubles. The Cards will put the ball in play, however, tying for the second fewest strikeouts in the league, and have good team speed, second in the ACC in stolen bases (46) and triples (nine).

Louisville averages 8.04 runs and 10.4 hits per contest.

The Cards have also had one of the more successful pitching staffs in the ACC. Opponents are batting just .216 against Louisville, second lowest in the ACC. The team ERA of 3.39 in third lowest in the conference. They are also one of the better fielding teams in the league, committing the third fewest errors.

Starters Ryan Hawks (Friday) and Greg Farone (Saturday) each rank in the top 10 in the ACC in strikeouts. Meanwhile, Sunday starter Carson Liggett is currently tied for sixth in ERA (1.76).

ACC Standings And Weekend Schedule

Atlantic Division

Team	Overall Record	Conference Record
Wake Forest	24-3	8-2
Boston College	18-5	6-3
Louisville	20-4	3-3
Notre Dame	13-9	4-5
Florida State	12-12	3-6
NC State	18-7	3-6
Clemson	16-11	2-5

Coastal Division

Team	Overall Record	Conference Record
Virginia	23-2	7-2
North Carolina	18-7	4-3
Georgia Tech	16-9	5-4
Miami	16-9	5-4
Duke	16-9	4-5
Pittsburgh	10-12	2-4
Virginia Tech	15-9	2-7

Weekend Series Schedule:

Louisville at NC State

Georgia Tech at Boston College

Wake Forest at Clemson (series started Thursday with a WFU win)

North Carolina at Notre Dame

Pittsburgh at Duke

Florida State at Miami

Virginia at Virginia Tech

NC State Baseball In The Polls

USA Today Sports baseball coaches: Unranked (down from 24th prior week)

Collegiate Baseball: Unranked (down from 25th)

Perfect Game: Unranked (previously unranked)

D1Baseball.com: Unranked (previously unranked)

Baseball America: Unranked (previously unranked)

NCBWA: Unranked (previously 29th)

Midweek Recap

NC State baseball completed a season sweep of UNC Greensboro with a workmanlike 6-2 win over the Spartans in Raleigh on Tuesday.

Perhaps most encouraging for NC State was that righty Baker Nelson and lefty Rio Britton each went 3.0 scoreless innings, while righthander Carson Kelly tossed a pair of frames without surrendering a run to end the game. Kelly, Nelson and Britton were three pitchers the Pack was counting on this year to be mainstays in the bullpen.

Nelson has now allowed just 4 hits and 1 earned run over his last 7 appearances for NC State, spanning 9.0 innings. He’s walked three and struck out 13 in that stretch. Britton, a transfer from Oregon, has not allowed a run in his last 5 appearances. He’s given up 7 hits and walked four, though, over those 5.2 innings while striking out seven.

Kelly had been hit hard in his prior two extended relief appearances, giving up 10 hits and 7 earned runs over 1.1 innings in midweek games vs. Elon and UNC Wilmington.