North Carolina State University Athletics
NC State Baseball: On The Road Again
4/3/2003 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 3, 2003
Wolfpack Reopens The Doak, Heads To Duke - After 30 games away from campus, NC State finally played a home game Wednesday night, beating UNC Greensboro 3-2 at Doak Field. Now, the Wolfpack begins an arduous stretch on the road for most of the month of April, beginning Friday evening with the first of a three-game Atlantic Coast Conference series at Duke. Game times for the three games will be 7 p.m. on Friday, 5 p.m. on Saturday, and 1:30 p.m. on Sunday.
NC State, ranked 12th nationally by Collegiate Baseball magazine, enters play this weekend at 24-7 overall and 4-2 in the ACC. Duke is 13-16 overall and 0-5 in the conference. Freshman righthander Michael Rogers (6-1, 2.16) will start for NC State on Friday. Rogers has made eight appearances this seaosn, all of them starts, and has allowed 49 hits, walked 18 and struck out 51 in 58-1/3 innings. In his last start, March 29 against 10th-ranked Clemson, he had his first rough outing of the season, allowing five runs, four of them earned, on 11 hits in 7-2/3 innings. He walked three and struck out six. The Clemson game was only the second time all season that Rogers has allowed more than two earned runs in a game, and none of his starts has been less than five innings. Only one of his outings has been shorter than 6-2/3 innings. Duke will counter on Friday with senior righthander Jeff Aleva (2-3, 2.92).
Junior lefthander Nate Cretarolo (2-2, 6.59) will make the start for the Wolfpack on Saturday. Cretarolo has made eight appearances, four of them starts, and has allowed 35 hits, walked 18 and struck out 34 in 28-2/3 innings. In his last outing, a start March 28 vs. Clemson, Cretarolo worked 4-2/3 innings and allowed two runs, one earned, on seven hits. He walked two and struck out seven. Cretarolo has allowed just three earned runs in his last 17 innings. Freshman righthander Russell Durfee (0-1, 4.50) will start on Saturday for the Blue Devils.
Junior righthander Vern Sterry (7-0, 2.16) will start the series finale on Sunday. Sterry will be making his ninth appearance, all of them starts. He has worked 58-1/3 innings, allowed 39 hits, walked 17 and struck out an ACC-leading 75. In his last start, March 29 vs. Clemson, Sterry was dominant, allowing two runs, one earned, on six hits in 8-2/3 innings. He walked four and struck out 10. Sterry nearly tossed a shutout against the Tigers. He retired 16 of the first 18 men he faced before giving up a disputed home run in the top of the sixth inning. Sterry gave up a single following the protested homer, and then set down nine of the next 12 men he faced before tiring in the ninth. And even after running out of gas in the ninth, he would have gotten out of the inning without allowing a run had it not been for a throwing error that led to an unearned run. Sterry now has allowed five earned runs in his last 25-2/3 innings. He has walked eight and struck out 32 in that time. Junior righthander Kevin Thompson (2-5, 3.21) will start the finale of the series for Duke.
The series between NC State and Duke has been highly competitive in recent years. Overall, the Wolfpack leads the series 132-116, but in the last six years, the Pack has only an 11-9 advange against the Blue Devils, and the two teams have split the 18 regular-season meetings played in that time. Duke has won two of the three games each time the series has been played in Durham (1997, 1999 and 2001), and NC State has taken two of three each of the three times the series has been in Raleigh (1998, 2000 and 2002).
A year ago at Doak Field, the Wolfpack won the first two games of the series by scores of 9-3 and 7-3, but dropped the series finale 4-2. Two years ago at Jack Coombs Field, NC State took the series opener 9-5, but then lost back-to-back games by scores of 11-10 and 10-6.
Neither team has swept the regular-season series since the Wolfpack swept the Blue Devils in 1991.
The 2003 campaign has been a bumpy ride of late for Duke, which began the year 10-6, but has lost nine of its last 12 games. Senior outfielder Brian Patrick has been the Blue Devils' offensive leader, hitting .330 with two of the team's six home runs and a team-high 27 RBIs. Senior catcher Troy Caradonna (.312-2-20) and sophomore utility man Tim Layden (.272-0-17) also have provided offensive production for Duke, which is batting .283 as a team and is averaging 4.9 runs per game.
NC State is hitting just .276 as a team, but is averaging 6.7 runs per game, thanks to 35 home runs. The Wolfpack is led offensively by the three guys in the middle of the lineup -- junior catcher Colt Morton (.294-11-27), junior right fielder Joe Gaetti (.235-9-33) and senior catcher-first baseman Justin Riley (.275-5-17).
The Wolfpack, however, has been driven by the work of its pitching staff, which comes into the Duke series with a 3.76 ERA, 3.21 in ACC games. Sterry and Rogers have given the Wolfpack a formiddable 1-2 punch in the rotation, and freshman righthander Joey Devine (4-0, 1.65, 8 saves) has been nothing short of incredible coming out of the bullpen.Devine has saved or won half of the Pack's 24 victories, has not allowed a run in 22-1/3 innings covering his last 13 appearances, and has allowed just four of 20 inherited runners to score.
Toss in strong support work from junior righthander and part-time starter Phillip Davidson (2-2, 3.76), freshman lefthander Jason Duncan (0-0, 5.87) and sophomore lefty Brandon Shipwash (1-0, 5.14) and the Wolfpack has been in almost every game because of its normally airtight pitching.
IMPRESSIVE ACC START: How impressive is NC State's 4-2 start in Atlantic Coast Conference play? Well, considering the opposition, very impressive.
At the time the Wolfpack's first two conference series were played, the opposition was ranked No. 2 nationally (Florida State) and No. 10 nationally (Clemson).
Prior to this season, NC State had won five three-game ACC series from opponents ranked in the national top 10, but no two of those series came in the same season, let alone on back-to-back weekends. Furthermore, only one of those series was played away from Doak Field. The last time NC State won a series from a team ranked as high as No. 2 in the country was a sweep of then-top-ranked Georgia Tech in 1990.
Five times in the last 10 years, the Wolfpack has started the ACC season 5-1, but never against this level of competition.
* Five years ago, 1998, the Pack opened the season with a sweep of Maryland and beat Virginia twice in three games. Maryland and Virginia finished eighth and ninth in the league that year and met one another in the ACC Tournament play-in game.
* In 1996, NC State opened the conference slate by beating Virginia two out of three and sweeping Wake Forest. Virginia went on to win 44 games and the ACC Tournament, but Wake Forest finished eighth and appeared in the play-in game.
* In 1995, the Wolfpack swept three games from Maryland and took two of three from Duke. The Terps and Blue Devils met one another in the play-in game.
* In 1994, NC State beat Duke two out of three and swept Virginia to open the ACC season. Duke wound up 16-8 in the league and finished third, but Virginia set an ACC record with 22 league defeats, a record that still stands, and lost in the tournament play-in game.
* In 1993, the Wolfpack swept Maryland, won one game at Wake Forest (the other two were snowed out) and took the first game of a three-game series against Florida State. That 5-1 start was tempered by the fact that Maryland finished ninth in the league and Wake Forest finished seventh.
PLAYERS OF THE WEEK: Getting off to a hot start has helped the Wolfpack in the weekly voting for Atlantic Coast Conference Player and Pitcher of the Week. NC State has had a position player or pitcher voted for the weekly honor each of the last four weeks.
* First up was junior right fielder Joe Gaetti, who was voted Player of the Week on March 10. In five games that week, Gaetti batted .476 (10-for-21) with two doubles, four home runs, seven RBIs and six stolen bases in as many attempts. His on-base percentage for the week was .542 and his slugging percentage was 1.143.
* On March 17, junior righthander Vern Sterry was voted conference Pitcher of the week. During the previous week, Sterry went 2-0 with a 2.76 ERA. On March 11 vs. The Citadel at in Wilson, Sterry allowed three runs on four hits in 7-1/3 innings. He walked two and struck out 10 as NC State defeated the Bulldogs 4-3. Sterry did not allow a hit out of the infield until two men were out in the seventh inning.
On March 16, Sterry tossed a complete-game seven-hitter against Princeton, which fell by an 8-2 score. Sterry allowed two runs, walked one and struck out a career-high 14.
* Junior catcher Colt Morton was voted Player of the Week on March 24. For the week, Morton went 7-for-15, homered three times and drove in five runs. He did most of that damage against Florida State, the nation's second-ranked team.
* On March 31, senior third baseman Jeremy Dutton was voted ACC Player of the Week after tearing up Clemson in a three-game series. Dutton batted .545 (6-for-11) with two doubles, two home runs, 11 RBIs and two stolen bases in as many attempts in four games during the week. He walked twice, did not strike out, scored five runs, had a slugging percentage of 1.273 and an on-base percentage of .615. His walk-off homer won the first game of the Clemson series in the bottom of the 11th inning, and his first career grand slam capped a 12-2 rout of the Tigers in the middle game of the series.
