North Carolina State University Athletics
NC State Baseball NCAA Austin Regional Notebook
5/31/2006 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 31, 2006
RALEIGH, N.C. - Greg Reynolds is hardly the first high-profile pitcher that NC State has faced in 2006. Come Friday, however, he will be the latest.
So far this season, the Wolfpack has teed it up against the likes of Nebraska's Joba Chamberlain; North Carolina's Andrew Miller (twice) and Daniel Bard, and UCLA lefty David Huff, all ranked among Baseball America's top 30 prospects for the upcoming MLB June draft.
Reynolds, Stanford's 6-foot-7, 225-pound righthander, is ranked fifth in the upcoming draft by Baseball America, and if his season numbers (6-5, 3.47 ERA in 16 starts) don't measure up to that lofty status, his most recent performances certainly do. In his last five starts, Reynolds is 3-2 with a 2.57 ERA against Arizona State, California, Washington, UCLA and Cal-Davis.
If the Wolfpack gets past Reynolds and Stanford, one of college baseball's perennial powers and a College World Series regular in the 1980s and 1990s, it will most likely face top seed Texas, the host school for the regional and the No. 3 national seed in the tournament.
Winning a national championship is not supposed to be easy, but it's hard to conceive of a path to Omaha with more formiddable obstacles than those facing NC State in the Austin Regional.
"I feel like we're going to the Super Bowl with the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys," Wolfpack coach Elliott Avent said after the pairings were announced.
Although NC State has lost eight of its last 15 games and 11 of its last 18, the Wolfpack is coming off a strong second-place showing in last week's Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament in Jacksonville, Fla.. The Wolfpack picked up wins against a pair of top five teams -- No. 4 North Carolina and No. 5 Virginia -- and got strong pitching in the championship game against Clemson, the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.
"We struggled for a time there, but I really believe that we started to come out of it in the ACC Tournament," Avent said. "We played really well in Jacksonville, and even in the championship game against Clemson, I thought we outplayed them for most of the game. We made some defensive mistakes that cost us, and we have to correct those, but we played well all week. Hopefully we can use that as a springboard going into the regionals this week."
NC STATE IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT: NC State's appearance in this year's Austin Regional marks the Wolfpack's 20th trip to the NCAA Tournament, its fourth in a row, and its 16th in the last 21 years. NC State's all-time record in the NCAA Tournament is 28-39.
NC State has made one trip to the College World Series, in 1968, and finished third. The Wolfpack has made one appearance to the NCAA Super Regionals, in 2003 after winning the Wilson Regional and advancing to Coral Gables to face Miami. The Hurricanes won the Super Regional in two games, winning the first game in the bottom of the ninth inning and the second in extra innings.
This marks NC State's first trip to Austin for postseason play and the Wolfpack's second trip in as many years to the Big 12 for the NCAA Tournament. The Pack played in the 2005 Lincoln Regional, winning one of three games. The Wolfpack also played in the 1993 Midwest Regional in Stillwater, Okla.
NC STATE VS. THE AUSTIN REGIONAL FIELD: NC State has played Texas three times in baseball and won all three. The most recent came on May 15, 2004, at Disch-Falk Field. The Wolfpack and Longhorns played a doubleheader that afternoon, and NC State's pitching duo of Michael Rogers and Vern Sterry each pitched a three-hit shutout against the Horns, the first time in the then-108-year history of Texas baseball that the Longhorns had been shut out of both ends of a doubleheader at home. Rogers outdueled Texas's J.P. Howell 1-0 in the first game, walking one and striking out 10. Both pitchers went the distance and the game time was a brisk one hour and 53 minutes. Sterry worked the nightcap, walking two and striking out 11. Sam LeCure, Buck Cody and J. Brent Cox combined on a seven-hitter, but LeCure took a tough-luck 2-0 defeat. The game went two hours and four minutes.
NC State's other victory over Texas came in third round of the 1968 College World Series. The Wolfpack took a 6-5 victory over Longhorns in that game to advance to the CWS semifinals, losing 2-0 to Southern California. The Trojans then defeated Southern Illinois for the national championship.
NC State has never played Stanford or Texas-Arlington in baseball. The Wolfpack participated in the 1998 West II Regional at the Sunken Diamond in Palo Alto, Calif., but did not meet the Cardinal during the six-team regional. The Pack played Long Beach State and Alabama two time each, splitting with each. Long Beach won the regional to advance to the CWS.
NC STATE'S STARTING PITCHERS: Junior righthander Gib Hobson (9-1, 4.60) will start for NC State on Friday vs. Stanford. Hobson is NC State's most experienced pitcher by far, having logged 50 career appearances, 36 career starts and 210 2/3 career innings. He has a 17-6 record and a 5.17 ERA in his three seasons at NC State. Hobson has made 19 appearances, including 13 starts, in 2006, and has allowed 50 runs, 45 earned, on 98 hits in 88 innings, walking 28 and striking out 61. In his last nine appearances, Hobson has allowed 18 runs, 16 of them earned, on 48 hits in 48 1/3 innings. He is 5-0 with a 2.98 ERA over that time. That follows a stretch of six appearances in which he worked 17 2/3 innings and allowed 22 runs on 29 hits (11.21 ERA), pitching himself out of the starting rotation. Hobson's last appearance was a 9-3 complete-game victory over then-fourth-ranked North Carolina on May 24 in the first round of the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament. North Carolina led off the game with a pair of bleeders that went for singles, and a three-run homer. Hobson allowed no runs on just seven hits the rest of the way as the Wolfpack rallied for a 9-3 victory. The complete game was Hobson's first since pitching a no-hitter March 12, 2005, against Maryland.
Redshirt-sophomore Eryk McConnell (7-6, 4.20) will be NC State's game two starter at the Austin Regional. McConnell has made 15 appearances this season, all starts, and has allowed 48 runs, 39 earned runs, on 88 hits in 83 2/3 innings. He has walked 21 and struck out 65. McConnell's last start was May 25 in the second round of the ACC Tournament, a 4-3 victory over No. 5-ranked Virginia. McConnell limited the Cavaliers to a pair of runs on nine hits in seven innings, walking one and striking out four. McConnell has been a tough-luck starter much of the season. NC State has scored a total of 17 runs in his six losses, an average of 2.8 runs per game. NC State is averaging 8.8 runs per game for the season.
THE 2005 LINCOLN REGIONAL: A year ago, NC State played in the Lincoln Regional in Lincoln, Neb., losing twice to Creighton and defeating Illinois-Chicago. In the opener, the Blue Jays broke open a 2-0 game with four runs in the top of the fifth inning, then cruised to an 8-3 win. Eric Wordekemper and Scott Reese combined on an eight-hitter. The Wolfpack overcame a 7-4 deficit the next afternoon to defeat UIC 9-7. Aaron Bates went 4-for-6 and drove in a run, Ramon Corona went 2-for-6 with a homer, and Jonathan Diaz went 3-for-4 and drove in a run to lead NC State's 18-hit attack. Still, the Wolfpack was unable to stop the Flames from scoring until Joey Devine, who pitched in the major leagues seven weeks later, entered the game with two out in the bottom of the sixth inning. UIC had seven runs and 11 hits at that point, and finished the game with seven runs and 11 hits as Devine threw 3 1/3 shutout innings without allowing a hit. The next afternoon Creighton scored five runs in the seventh inning to overcome an 8-6 NC State lead and send the Wolfpack back home to Raleigh. Tony Daniel homered twice and drove in five runs to lead the Blue Jays. Matt Camp went 3-for-5 with an RBI, and Jake Muyco and Matt Devine had two hits apiece.
For the tournament, Bates batted .500 (7-for-14), while Camp batted .462 (6-for-13) with a double and six RBIs to make the all-tournament team.
AVENT IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT: NC State coach Elliott Avent is 9-12 for his career in NCAA Tournament play. This year's Austin Regional marks Avent's seventh NCAA Tournament appearance in 10 years in Raleigh. He won the 2003 Wilson Regional, and his Wolfpack team was the last unbeaten team in the 1998 West Regional in Palo Alto, Calif. NC State went 1-2 the last two years in the NCAA Tournament.
ALL-ACC: With six players earning either first- or second-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference honors, NC State had more players selected to the ACC's postseason all-star team than any other conference school. The Wolfpack's Matt Camp (OF) and Ramon Corona (2B) were named to the first team, with Aaron Bates (1B), Jonathan Diaz (SS), Jon Still (DH) and Caleb Mangum (C) named to the second team.
Only North Carolina, with three, had more players named first-team All-ACC than NC State. Clemson, Miami, Florida State, Virginia and Wake Forest also had two players named first-team all-conference. Clemson, North Carolina, Georgia Tech, Miami and Virginia had four players total named first- and second-team All-ACC.
ALL-ACC TOURNAMENT: Befitting a champion, Clemson dominated the Atlantic Coast Conference's All-ACC Tournament team. Runner-up NC State had several deserving candidates for the team. but had to settle for catcher Caleb Mangum, who batted .412 (7-for-17), scored twice and drove in two runs while playing with a bad back; and center fielder Matt Camp, who batted .364 (8-for-22) with two doubles, a triple, seven runs scored and three driven in. Second baseman Ramon Corona (.400, homer, 5 RBIs) and starting pitcher Gib Hobson (1-0, 3.00, CG vs. North Carolina) merited consideration for all-tournament, but were not selected.
SUPER SUB TO STARTER: Freshman third baseman Drew Martin's highlight-reel performances at the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament earned him consideration for the all-tournament team from several writers in attendance and, following the tournament, a move into NC State's starting lineup.
Martin got his first collegiate start in the Wolfpack's tournament opener against fourth-ranked North Carolina and All-America lefthander Andrew Miller. Martin went 3-for-4 for the game, 2-for-3 vs. Miller, and was flawless defensively.
That was Martin's only start of the season, but was his least memorable performance in Jacksonville as well. The following afternoon vs. Virginia, he entered the game for defensive purposes in the ninth inning and ended a tense 4-3 victory for the Wolfpack by snaring a sharp grounder off the bat of ACC Player of the Year Sean Doolittle and turning it into a 5-4-3 double play.
In the Wolfpack's bracket finals vs. Florida State, Martin again entered the game as a ninth-inning defensive replacement and turned in a pair of dazzling defensive stops. First, he turned what looked like a sure double down the line by Danny Diaz into a groundout with a sensational backhanded stop. Then he ended the game with a diving catch of Jack Rye's line drive into the shortstop hole, laid out parallel to the ground as he made the catch.
NC State went 3-2 in the ACC Tournament, 3-0 when Martin's name was in the box score, 0-2 when he spent the entire game on the bench.
AVENT COLLECTS 600th CAREER WIN: NC State's 4-3 win over Virginia in the second round of the ACC Tournament was Wolfpack head coach Elliott Avent's 600th career win. Avent's career record now stands at 601-444, which includes eight seasons at New Mexico State. His record in nine-plus seasons at NC State is 376-233.
ALL-CONFERENCE CATCHER: NC State has had a succession of outstanding catchers in the Elliott Avent era, beginning with Brad Piercy and Scott Lawler, and running through Dan Mooney, Colt Morton and Jake Muyco. The latest in that tradition is junior Caleb Mangum, who has pieced together an outstanding 2006 season, batting .367 with seven doubles, one triple, four homers and 34 RBIs in 48 games, all the while playing with several injuries. Mangum has been charged with just four passed balls.
Mangum has gotten better and better at the plate as the season has gone along. He has batted .417 (15-for-36) in the last 10 games, and .382 (29-for-76) in the last 20.
Mangum has battled injuries to his left ankle and left knee, and currently is battling a sore back. Despite the bad back, he still hit .412 (7-for-17) in the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament.
