North Carolina State University Athletics
Miami Tops Baseball, 5-1
4/14/2007 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
The victory by the Hurricanes evened the series at a game apiece. Miami improved to 22-15 overall and 8-9 in the ACC. NC State dropped to 25-11 overall and 10-7 in the conference. Garcia (3-2) was masterful, shutting out the Pack on three hits through eight innings before allowing a run in the top of the ninth. He struck out a career-high 12 and did not walk a batter. NC State, which now has just nine hits in the last 19 innings it has played, is hitting just .158 for the series.
Andrew Brackman (6-3) started and took the loss for NC State. He worked seven innings and allowed five runs on 10 hits. He walked three and struck out five.
Tekotte got Miami started with a one-out single thorugh the right side in the bottom of the third. Roger Tomas beat out an infield single to give Miami runners at first and second. Yonder Alonso struck out, but Tekotte and Tomas pulled off a double steal on strike three to put runners on second and third with two away for Mark Sobolewski, who sliced an opposite-field two-run single to right field. Tekotte and Tomas scored, but Sobolewski was out at second going for a double.
Alonso led off the bottom of the sixth and walked. Sobolewski sacrificed Alonso to second, and Dennis Raben hit a two-run homer down the right-field line to give the Hurricanes a 4-0 lead. Tekotte made it 5-0 when he got a fly ball up into the gale-force wind blowing out to left field. The wind carried the ball out of the park and off of the matrix board on the scoreboard.
The closest NC State came to scoring off Garcia through the first eight innings, meanwhile, was in the top of the fourth when Caleb Mangum was hit by a pitch and Jeremy Synan drove a two-out double off the wall in center field. Television replays appeared to show that Mangum scored from first base on the play, but he was called out on a very close play at the plate. Drew Martin had a two-out single in the third, and Synan added a two-out single up the middle in the seventh.
The Wolfpack avoided the shutout with a run in the top of the ninth. Joe Florio led off with a single up the middle and scored all the way from first on Pat Ferguson’s double to right-center. Garcia recovered and finished off the inning with a pair of groundouts and a strikeout to end it.
NC State and Miami will play the final game of their series on Sunday at 1 p.m. The game \will be broadcast live on WKNC, 88.1 FM, and will be available on-line on gopack.com through Pack Pass.
