North Carolina State University Athletics
NC State Baseball Shuts Down UNCG 6-0
3/28/2007 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
The Wolfpack, which won for the third time in its last four games, improved to 19-8 on the season. UNC Greensboro dropped to 12-13.
Nate Karns (2-1), the first of three pitchers for the Wolfpack in a prearranged split, got the win with four shutout innings of one-hit baseball. He struck out four and did not issue a walk.
In his last two starts – against Valparaiso on March 14 and Wednesday against UNCG – Karns has been nearly perfect, allowing no runs and just two hits in nine innings with 11 strikeouts and no walks. He retired 27 of 30 batters faced in those two games, and one of the three batters he did not retire reached on an error.
UNCG starter Nick Starnes (1-2) took the loss after allowing six runs, four earned, on five hits in just 2 1/3 innings. He walked three and did not record a strikeout.
Starnes was wild from the start, walking Joe Florio, Jeremy Synan and Ryan Pond to load the bases with one out in the bottom of the first. Greg Feltes dropped Pat Ferguson’s fly ball to left field for sacrifice fly and an error. Florio scored on the play, and Caleb Mangum followed with a two-run double off the base of the wall in left field. Ferguson went to third on Mangum’s double and scored on Mike Roskopf’s grounder to second base.
Synan led off the bottom of the third with a single through the right side of the infield, and Pond made it 5-0 with a booming triple off the wall in straightaway center field. Ferguson dribbled a grounder that caught second baseman Tim Carrier leaning the wrong way, resulting in an infield single and an RBI to drive in Pond.
The pitchers took control from there. Jeff Stallings relieved Karns to begin the fifth and worked three perfect innings, striking out one. Sam Brown worked the final two innings for the Pack, allowing a pair of infield singles and nothing else. Rob Gilliam came in for Starnes and stopped the bleeding for the Spartans, holding NC State scoreless on three hits over 4 2/3 innings. He walked three and struck out five. Clay Gibson worked a shutout inning in the eighth.
NC State will return to action this weekend in a three-game ACC series at Boston College. Game times will be 2:30 p.m. on Friday, and 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. All three games will be broadcast on WKNC (88.1 FM) and will be available live on-line on gopack.com through Pack Pass.
