North Carolina State University Athletics
Prochaska Leads NC State Past Rutgers, 9-8
2/18/2000 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
The win was the Wolfpack's third in a row and raised the Pack's record on the season to 3-2. Rutgers lost in its season opener. Reliever Josh Miller picked up the win, his first decision of the season, with 1 1/3 innings of relief. Josh Schmitt retired the only batter he faced to record his first save of the year. Eric Brown took the loss for Rutgers.
Rutgers took the 1-0 lead in the top of the first on a leadoff walk by David DeJesus and back-to-back one-out bloop singles by Jake Daubert and Todd Speedy. In the bottom of the second, Prochaska led off with a single to left and Andy Baxter walked. Craig Lee then doubled down the right-field line to tie the game at 1-1.
NC State took the lead in the bottom of the third inning, with all the offense coming after two were out. Brian Wright blooped a single to left, stole second and scored on Prochaska's single to left. Andy Baxter followed with a double down the right-field line to score Prochaska and give the Wolfpack a 3-1 lead.
Dan Mooney's leadoff homer in the bottom of the fifth, his second in as many games, increased the Pack's lead to 4-1. Jason Smith was up next and was hit by a pitch, stole second and took third on a wild pitch. Ryan Strain singled to right field one out later to make it 5-1 Wolfpack and knock Wilson out of the game. Ryan Molcham came on to pitch for Rutgers and gave up two-out singles to Prochaska and Baxter to drive in Strain and make it a 6-1 game.
NC State added another run in the bottom of the fifth. Jason Smith singled with one out, stole second and went to third when Jeremy Dutton reached on an error. Smith scored when Dutton was picked off first and caught in a run-down, pushing the Wolfpack lead to 7-1.
The Knights began to claw back into the game in the top of the sixth off relievers Derek McKee and Kyle Stephenson. Joe Cirone led off with a walk, and Mike Popowski and Matt Wolski hit back-to-back singles to drive home Cirone. After Mike DeJesus walked to load the bases, Darren Fenster hit a sacrifice fly to score Wolski and cut the lead to 7-3. That brought Stephenson out of the bullpen for NC State, and he walked the first man he faced, Daubert, to load the bases once again. Speedy then hit a grounder to shortstop, but Goodman booted the ball for a run-scoring error, reducing the lead to 7-4.
The Scarlet Knights cut lead to a single run in the top of the seventh. Cirone and Popowski led off with singles, and Wolski bunted the runners to second and third. Cirone scored on pinch-hitter Jeff Marciniak's RBI groundout, and DeJesus singled to left to drive in Popowski and cut the lead to 7-6.
In the top of the eighth, Daubert led off with a walk, took second on a groundout and scored on O'Brien's single to tie the game at 7-7. Josh Miller then came in to pitch for the Wolfpack and worked out of the jam on a pair of groundouts.
With one out in the bottom of the eighth, Jeremy Dutton hit a one-out infield single, and Ryan Strain and Brian Wright walked to load the bases. Prochaska then grounded to second to drive in the go-ahead run. Strain then scored on a wild pitch, giving NC State a 9-7 lead.
Freshman pinch-hitter Val Majewski homered to right field in the bottom of the ninth, but Schmitt came out of the pen to record the final out.
