North Carolina State University Athletics
NC State Baseball Hosts UNC Greensboro Wednesday Afternoon
3/14/2006 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
March 14, 2006
RALEIGH, N.C. - With a five-game winning streak on the line, NC State will take on UNC Greensboro at 4 o'clock Thursday afternoon at Doak Field at Dail Park. The game will be broadcast live on WKNC-FM (88.1) and on-line at gopack.com through Yahoo's subscription service.
THE STARTING PITCHER: Sophomore righthander Matt Payne (0-0, 3.00) will start for the Wolfpack today against UNC Greensboro. Payne had pitched nine innings in four relief appearances this season. He has allowed three runs on seven hits, walking four and striking out eight. Payne's last outing on the mound was March 7 at Campbell, where he allowed two runs on three hits in two innings. He walked one and struck out four. Payne also has played the outfield this season, and is batting .333 with one home run and three RBIs.
NC STATE VS. UNCG: The Wolfpack holds an 18-3 advantage in the series with the Spartans. NC State is 10-0 in the series since Elliott Avent became NC State head coach in 1997, including a 6-0 mark here at Doak Field at Dail Park. UNCG's last win in the series was a 4-2 triumph in 1996 at Greensboro's venerable War Memorial Stadium.
NC STATE IN THE RANKINGS: When UCLA swept NC State two weekends ago, the Wolfpack's spot in the national rankings was one of the casualties. The Pack fell completely out of two of the five national polls, and tumbled significantly in the other three. Last weekend's sweep of Boston College sparked a slight surge in the polls, with the Wolfpack moving up from 26 to 22 in the Collegiate Baseball poll, and from 22 to 18 in the poll by National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA). NC State still is unranked by Baseball America.
MIDWEEK WARRIORS: Dating back to the last week of the 2004 season, NC State has a 17-game winning streak in midweek games, including a perfect 12-0 record in midweek games in 2005. The Wolfpack is 4-0 in midweek games this season, and won its last midweek game in 2004.
RED-HOT PARROTHEAD: As a freshman a year ago, Ryan Pond batted .340 in 38 games. This season, Pond got off to a horrific start, hitting .212 through the team's first 18 games. A Jimmy Buffett fan, Pond went to the plate last season with strains of Buffett's "I Don't Know And I Don't Care" playing over the PA system. This season, Pond switched to a more vintage Buffett song, "Volcano," from the 1979 album of the same name. On March 8, he requested that his intro music be switched back to "I Don't Know And I Don't Care," from Buffett's 1999 release Beach House On The Moon. Pond went 2-for-3 vs. The Citadel that afternoon, and is 7-for-10 overall since the music change.
CAMP HITTING STREAK: Looking to rebound from what for him was an offseason in 2005, senior outfielder Matt Camp has gotten off to a hot start in 2006, and has gotten hotter as the season has progressed. Camp currently is riding a 10-game hitting streak and has batted .436 (17-for-39) with six doubles, eight runs scored and six RBIs. He has lifted his batting average for the season a whopping 78 points, from .267 to its current .345.
NO BULLPEN BLUES: When NC State lost Joey Devine to the Atlanta Braves in the first round of last year's June draft, many wondered how the NC State bullpen would fare without its all-time saves leader in 2006.
The answer is: quite nicely, thank you very much. With Sam Walls emerging as Devine's successor as NC State's closer, the bullpen has a 3-0 record with a 2.47 ERA.
Walls has all three saves and a 0.60 ERA, and the rest of the bullpen also has pitched well. Six Wolfpack relievers have combined to work 23 innings without allowing a run. The men who have come out of the bullpen with runners on base also have been impressive. Wolfpack relievers have inherited 36 baserunners and stranded 23 of them. Sophomore lefty Chris Engle has stranded six of the eight runners he has inherited, and sophomore righthander Travis High has inherited six runners and stranded five. (High and Engle were high school teammates at Wesleyan Christian Academy under Coach Scott Davis, a former Wolfpack infielder.) Senior righthander Ammer Cabrera and junior righthander Adam McLaurin had combined to strand five of the nine inherited runners.
GAME TIME CHANGED: Because of the threat of cold weather that night, the game time for Friday's game vs. Georgia Tech has been changed from 7 p.m. to 3 p.m.
