North Carolina State University Athletics
NC State Baseball Hosts Lehigh In Non-ACC Series
3/24/2005 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
March 24, 2005
RALEIGH, N.C. - Before last weekend's series against Georgia Tech in Atlanta, NC State had not lost consecutive games all season. After being swept by the blazing-hot Yellow Jackets, the Wolfpack has lost three in a row and will look to get back in the win column this weekend when Lehigh comes to Doak Field for a three-game non-conference series.
Game times will be 3 p.m. on Friday, 2 p.m. on Saturday, and 1 p.m. on Sunday. All three games will be broadcast live on WKNC-FM (88.1) and the broadcasts will be available on the internet at gopack.com through the Yahoo subscription service. Live in-game stats will be available on gopack.com through the Gametracker.
THE STARTING PITCHERS: Sophomore righthander Gib Hobson (4-1, 4.37) will start the series opener for NC State on Friday. Hobson has made seven appearances, all starts, and has allowed 22 runs, 17 of them earned, on 34 hits in 35 innings. He has walked 13 and struck out 26. In his last start, March 20 at Georgia Tech, Hobson worked four-plus innings and was charged with four runs on five hits. He walked a career-high five and struck out two. A week earlier, on March 12 at Doak Field, Hobson threw the first no-hitter by an NC State pitcher in 12 years, beating Maryland 11-1. The one Terrapin run scored on a walk, an error and a groundout, and was unearned. Hobson walked four and struck out a career-high 11, which also is a season high for strikeouts for any NC State pitcher. The last no-hitter by a Wolfpack hurler was on March 26, 1993, by Terry Harvey against Florida State.
Senior righthander Jack Muscalus (2-1, 5.19) will start on Friday for Lehigh. His last time out, he took a 7-6 loss March 19 against Binghamton in the first game of a doubleheader, allowing seven runs, three earned, on five hits in five innings. He walked three and struck out four.This will be his sixth start of the season.
Redshirt-junior lefthander Branden Knapp (1-1, 4.19), a transfer from Midland (Texas) Junior College, will start Saturday in the middle game of the series. Knapp has made five appearances, including two starts. In 19 1/3 innings, he has allowed 10 runs, nine earned runs, on 18 hits. He has walked one and struck out 13. In his last appearance, a start March 19 at Georgia Tech, Knapp worked 7 1/3 innings and allowed five runs, four of them earned, on 10 hits. He struck out six and did not issue a walk. After allowing four runs in the first 2 2/3 innings, Knapp settled down and retired nine men in a row and 13 of 14 before tiring in the eighth inning. In his two starts, Knapp is 1-1 with a 2.70 ERA. He has allowed 12 hits and struck out nine without allowing a walk in 13 1/3 innings as a starting pitcher this season.
Junior righthander Kyle Collina (2-2, 4.76) will start on Saturday for the Mountain Hawks. Collina defeated Binghamton in his last appearance, March 19 at Lehigh in the second game of a doubleheader. He went the distance, allowing two runs on five hits in seven innings. He walked three and struck out five. This will be his sixth appearance and his fourth start. Baseball America lists Collina as the Patriot League's No. 1 prospect for the 2005 Major League Baseball draft.
Sophomore righthander Jeff Stallings (3-2, 4.89) will start the series finale for the Wolfpack. This will be Stallings' eighth appearance and his seventh start. He has thrown 35 innings and allowed 20 runs, 19 earned, on 39 hits. He has walked 15 and struck out 23. In his last start, March 18 at Georgia Tech, Stallings allowed two runs, one of them earned, on three hits in six innings, walking two and striking out four, but was charged with the loss in a 9-5 defeat.
Freshman righthander Joe Matteo (2-0, 0.44) will start the Sunday game for Lehigh. Matteo, who has made four appearances and three starts, tossed a seven-inninng shutout in the first game of a doubleheader against Binghamton on March 20. He allowed six hits, walked three and struck out seven.
NC STATE VS. LEHIGH: NC State holds a 3-0 lead in the series with Lehigh. NC State defeated Lehigh 8-1 in 1912, 7-1 in 1953, and 6-3 in 1973. The two teams have never played a three-game series with one another.
SCOUTING LEHIGH: The Mountain Hawks come to Raleigh having won five of their last seven games, including a 2-1-1 record this past weekend vs. Binghamton in their first Patriot League series of the season. Picked to finish second in the Patriot League by Baseball America, Lehigh boasts the top two professional prospects in the league in junior righthander Kyle Collina (2-2, 4.76 in 2005) and sophomore catcher Matt McBride (.273 average). Senior righthander Jack Muscalus (2-1, 5.19), outfielder David Moscow (.238) and McBride were all preseason all-conference picks according to Baseball America, but Lehigh has received its top performances thus far from freshman righthander Joe Matteo (2-0, 0.44), junior outfielder Andrew Smith (.391 with 5 homers and 18 RBIs) and senior first baseman Forrest Doane (.333-3-12). The Mountain Hawks come into play this weekend batting .314 as a team with a .396 on-base percentage and a .456 slugging percentage. They have a staff ERA of 3.78
SCOUTING NC STATE'S OFFENSE: Senior third baseman Matt Devine continues to lead the NC State offense. Devine is hitting a robust .438 with five doubles, three triples, one home run and 20 RBIs. He is second on the team in runs driven in. Junior catcher Jake Muyco, despite having his hitting streak snapped on Saturday at Georgia Tech, continues to swing a hot bat as well. He checks in this weekend at .388 with a team-high nine doubles and 19 RBIs. Sophomore first baseman Aaron Bates is hitting .384, is tied for the team lead with three homers and leads the team with 23 RBIs. Junior outfielder Brian Aragon is hiting .379 with three homers and 13 RBIs. The Wolfpack is hitting .316 as a team with a .459 slugging percentage and a .408 on-base percentage.
LAST WEEK: NC State has been off since being swept last weekend at fifth-ranked Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets defeated the Wolfpack 9-5, 5-0 and 11-10 at Chandler Stadium in Atlanta. Tech extended its ACC-record streak of consecutive conference wins to a mind-boggling 25. The Jackets now have swept their last eight ACC series. The three losses dropped the Wolfpack into a hole in ACC play at 3-6, 15-8 overall. The losses at Tech mark the first time in 2005 that NC State has lost consecutive games.
THE WEEK AHEAD: Weather permitting, NC State will play its first midweek since March 9 when Elon comes to Doak Field this coming Wednesday. After that, it's back to ACC competition. Next weekend, Virginia Tech, one of two new teams in the conference this season, will make its first trip to Doak Field since 1996.
MUYCO'S HITTING STREAK ENDS AT 18: Thanks to several instances of highway robbery March 19 at Georgia Tech, junior catcher Jake Muyco's hitting streak was stopped at 18 games, which is tied for the third longest by an NC State hitter since Elliott Avent became head coach in 1997. Muyco now has hit safely in every game this season but two. He batted .397 (27-for-68) during the hitting streak, which ended on a night that saw Muyco hit bullets directly at the Georgia Tech pitcher and the third baseman, then ended when Tech shortstop Tyler Greene robbed Muyco with an unbelievable play in the shortstop hole.
The longest hitting streak in school history was a 26-game streak by Greg Briley in 1986. Tom Sergio had a 25-game streak in 1995.
ARAGON GOES DEEP: Junior outfielder Brian Aragon became the first NC State player this season to hit more than one home run in a game when he went deep twice March 20 at Georgia Tech.
IN A PINCH: Junior infielder Aaron Cone has quickly carved out a niche for himself as NC State's not-so-secret weapon off the bench. Cone is 5-for-8 (.625) with two doubles and six RBIs as a pinch-hitter. Cone's most dramatic pinch-hit of the season was his game-winning, two-out single March 13 to beat Maryland 6-5 in 10 innings.
SHUT OUT: NC State's 5-0 loss March 19 at Georgia Tech was the first time the Wolfpack was blanked in 59 games, since a 1-0 loss at UNC Wilmington on March 23, 2004.
BATS: Hitting .316 as a team, NC State heads into play this weekend averaging 7.7 runs and 10.9 hits per game. NC State has collected 10 or more hits in a game 17 times in 23 games, including eight of the last 10 games.
For some perspective, the Wolfpack got 10 or more hits in a game just 29 times in 60 games a year ago, and did not record its 17th game of 10 or more hits until the 30th game of the season.
NC State has scored 10 runs or more in a game nine times so far this season, matching last year's total of nine double-digit games in 60 games all season.
MORE BATS: NC State opened the 2005 season by sweeping Delaware State, pounding the Hornets by scores of 18-3 and 15-1 in the first two games of the series. A year ago, the Wolfpack scored 15 runs in a game just twice all season. This year, the Pack did it twice in the first two games.
Lowing the threshold by two runs, NC State scored eight runs or more in a game only 15 times in 60 games in 2003. The Wolfpack has scored eight runs or more in a game 14 times in the first 24 games of 2005.
STILL MORE BATS: In scoring 33 runs the first two games of 2005, NC State scored eight runs in an inning twice, once in each game. The Wolfpack scored eight in the sixth inning of the opener February 4, and then had an eight-run inning in the third inning the next day. So in the first 12 innings of the season, NC State surpassed the number of eight-run innings it had in all of 2004, just one, on March 2 vs. Le Moyne.
Those were not the team's last big innings of the year, although it has yet to produce another eight-run frame. The Wolfpack added a seven-run inning February 20 vs. San Diego State, and a six-run inning March 1 s. UNC Greensboro.
