North Carolina State University Athletics
Pitchers Dominate Fourth World Series Game
10/19/2007 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
For the record, Team Pack won the five-inning game 1-0, but the real winners were the pitchers. Nine pitchers -- Eric Surkamp, Eryk McConnell, Drew Taylor, Clayton Shunick, Jason Zinser, Alex Sogard, Joey Cutler, Travis High and Sam Brown -- worked one inning apiece, allowing one run on five hits with two walks and 11 strikeouts. The one run came without the ball leaving the infield.
Taylor, a junior lefthander, got credit for the win with one inning of work. Zinser, a junior righthander, took the loss, allowing the game’s only run on one hit and two walks.
Jeremy Synan led off the bottom of the second for Team Pack and worked Zinser for a walk. Zinser struck out Matt Payne for the first out, but Pat Ferguson hit a spinning cue shot off the end of the bat that hit the side of the mound and took a wicked hop, handcuffing shortstop Kyle Prewitt, whose rushed throw to first was wide of the bag. Ferguson was safe with an infield single, and Zinser hit Ryan Pond with a pitch to load the bases. Tommy Foschi then walked to drive in the run.
Aside from that, only three runners even advanced to scoring position, all three of them for Team Wolf.
Taylor hit Sean Morrison and Mike Gatlin with pitches leading off the top of the second inning, and Bill Edwards grounded into a force play to put runners on first and third with two away. Taylor fanned Ramon Rubio for the final out of the inning.
In the top of the third, Prewitt reached on a one-out infield single, and went to third on Joe Florio’s perfectly executed hit-and-run single through the vacated left side of the infield. Brown got Team Pack out of the inning by retiring Morrison on a 3-6-1 double play.
Mike Gatlin led off the top of the fourth and singled through the left side of the infield off Clayton Shunick, and Devon Cartwright sacrificed the runner to second base. Shunick recovered by striking out Bill Edwards and Rubio to end that threat.
The second game of this weekend’s series will be played Saturday at 4:30 p.m., with the finale set for Sunday at 1 p.m.
