North Carolina State University Athletics
First Fall Series Game Ends In 3-3 Tie
10/10/2007 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
For the hundred or so fans who watched, the game revealed little. The hitters for Team Wolf and Team Pack produced just six runs and 12 hits in 14 innings of offense. That might be a sign that the pitching was really good, and at times it was, but there was the matter of all those walks.
Six pitchers combined to work 14 innings, issued 10 walks and ran up numerous deep counts. Juniors Drew Taylor and Clayton Shunick were exempt from criticism on this front, each working two scoreless innings without allowing a walk. Taylor retired all six men he faced, while Shunick allowed a single in each inning he worked, and stranded both men at third base.
That means that through the first five innings of the game 10 pitchers’ innings four pitchers managed to walk 10 batters and allow 10 base hits.
Offensively, junior outfielder Jeremy Synan belted a pair of doubles, ran the bases with aplomb and scored a pair of runs. The same goes for Wade Moore, a sophomore outfielder who doubled in two official at-bats, went from first to third on a wild pitch, went from second to third on dropped third strike, and also scored two runs. Pat Ferguson had two singles and a walk.
Team Wolf dinged Pack starter Jason Zinser for a run without the benefit of a base hit in the top of the second. Moore led off with a walk, Zinser’s third walk in the first seven batters he faced. When catcher Nate Cockman was unable to find a wild pitch that skipped to the backstop, Moore went all the way to third base, and scored from there on Bill Edwards’ fly ball to right field.
Team Pack retaliated in the bottom of the third. Synan led off with a booming double off the wall in left-center, his second two-bagger of the game, and went to third on a grounder to second base off the bat of Matt Payne. With the infield playing back at normal depth, Ferguson got the game-tying run home with a grounder to shortstop.
Moore and Team Wolf got the lead back in the top of the fourth, off all-conference lefthander Eric Surkamp. Moore led off and slapped an opposite-field double down the left-field line. Edwards struck out, but the ball bounced away from Cockman. Edwards was thrown out at first, but Moore moved to third on the throw, then scored when Ramon Rubio flared a 3-2 pitch into shallow center field for an RBI-single. Surkamp then walked Joe Florio, Tommy Foschi and Nick Stanley to force in a run.
Team Wolf came back and tied the game in the bottom of the fifth. Synan led off and walked. Synan went to second on a wild pitch that was little more than a pitch in the dirt at the feet of Stanley. Matt Payne singled up the middle to drive in Synan, and Ferguson singled up the middle to put runners on first and third with none out. Cockman tied the game at 3-3 with an RBI-groundout to second base.
