North Carolina State University Athletics
Baseball Downs Valpo to Sweep Series, 9-4
3/14/2007 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
NC State won for the third straight game to improve to 14-6 on the season. Valparaiso fell to 2-9 with the loss. Shunick (2-1) allowed just one unearned run on two hits. He struck out six without allowing a walk. Elliott Gibbs (0-2) started and took the loss for the Crusaders. Gibbs worked 3 1/3 innings and was charged with six runs, four earned, on five hits. He walked two and struck out two.
The game was not a clinic on crisp, fundamental play. Valparaiso pitchers were charged with four balks, an NC State batter with batter’s interference, and there were eight errors, six by NC State, which entered the game with a sterling .971 fielding percentage.
Michael Arensdorff gave Valparaiso its first run and its first lead of the series with a one-out, opposite-field solo homer in the top of the first inning.
The Wolfpack answered in the bottom of the third. Marcus Jones led off with a single up the middle and was balked to second base. Tommy Foschi walked, and Gibbs hit Joe Florio on the foot to load the bases with none out. Poulk followed with a triple into the right-field corner to make it 3-0, and Vince Gutierrez drove in Poulk with the fourth run by grounding out to shortstop.
Valpo tied the game in the top of the fourth. Brian Rzepka reached on a one-out bloop single to right-center in the top of the fourth, and Mark Schoeck walked. That was all for NC State starter Sam Brown, who gave way to Clayton Shunick after pitching 3 1/3 innings. Joe Lazar struck out, but John Giusti’s high chopper to shortstop was misplayed by Ramon Corona for an error, allowing Rzepka to score. Jeff Rickert hit a line drive to right-center and when Marcus Jones dived and was unable to come up with the ball, it went all the way to the wall for a game-tying two-run triple.
Pat Ferguson led off the bottom of the fourth for the Wolfpack and singled up the middle. Caleb Mangum hit a potential double-play grounder to shortstop, but Rickert kicked it for an error, and Jones walked to load the bases with none out. Reliever Jay Clites balked to score one run, and Florio laid down a perfect drag bunt to the right of the mound to drive in another and give the Wolfpack a 6-4 lead.
Caleb Mangum led off the bottom of the sixth and doubled off the wall in left field, and went to third on Jones’s fly ball to right field. Tommy Foschi’s squeeze bunt got Mangum home to make it 7-4. Foschi was safe when Schoeck’s throw to first base was over the head of Giusti covering, but Clites pitched out of further trouble by picking Foschi off second base and retiring Florio on a grounder.
Matt Payne led off the bottom of the seventh with a pinch-hit single to center field and went to second on a balk. Vince Gutierrez doubled into the right-field corner to drive in Payne, and Mike Roskopf doubled to left-center to drive in Gutierrez and give the Pack a 9-4 lead.
NC State will return to action on Friday for the first of a three-game series against Virginia Tech. Game times are 3 p.m. on Friday, 2 p.m. on Saturday and 1:30 p.m. on Sunday. The games Saturday and Sunday will be broadcast live on WKNC (88.1 FM). Sunday’s game will be joined in progress on WKNC following the completion of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament game between NC State and Robert Morris.
All three games of the Virginia Tech series will be broadcast on-line at gopack.com through Pack Pass.
