North Carolina State University Athletics
Clemson Overtakes Baseball 3-2
3/22/2008 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
CLEMSON, S.C. Sometimes it’s not how hard you hit the ball, but where you hit it. Wee Willie Keeler once said, “Hit em where they ain’t,” and NC State found out Saturday night the wisdom of Keeler’s famous words. Clemson followed a leadoff seventh-inning walk with three straight balls hit into no-man’s land in shallow right-center field to score three runs and defeat the Wolfpack 3-2 in the second game of an Atlantic Coast Conference series at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.
Clemson improved to 13-7 overall with the win and 3-5 in the ACC. NC State dropped to 13-6 and 4-4.
The three-run seventh inning made a loser of NC State starter Clayton Shunick, who pitched brilliantly for six innings and deserved a better fate in the seventh. Shunick wound up allowing three runs on eight hits in six-plus innings of work. He walked nine and tied his career high with nine strikeouts. He was working on a five-hit shutout through the first six innings, with Tigers leadoff hitter Stan Widmann accounting for three of the five hits. Widmann led off the first, third and sixth innings with hits, but Shunick had no problem pitching out trouble each time. He struck out the next three hitters in the first, got Wilson Boyd to ground into a double play to erase Widmann. In the sixth, Widmann doubled and stole third, but Shunick got Boyd to fly out to shallow left, then fanned Doug Hogan and Ben Paulsen.
Shunick also allowed a one-out single to Kyle Parker in the second and a one-out single to Jeff Schaus in the fourth. He stranded Parker and Mike Freeman, who reached on catcher’s interference, in the second, and Schaus was caught stealing.
Clemson starter D.J. Mitchell matched Shunick zero for zero through five innings, then was victimized by shoddy defense in a two-run sixth inning. Dallas Poulk led off with a single to right. With one away, Marcus Jones hit a comebacker to Mitchell, but his throw to second base went right through the glove of Freeman for an error, allowing Poulk to take third. Jones stole second base, and Matt Payne hit another comebacker to Mitchell, whose throw home went right through Hogan for another error. Poulk scored on the one-hopper back to the mound. Jones came around and scored from second on the error on Hogan.
The 2-0 lead seemed safe heading into the bottom of the seventh, but Shunick walked Schaus on five pitches, his only walk of the game. Parker hit a soft line drive over Poulk’s head and into shallow right-center. Schaus went to third on the play. Freeman was up next and hit a blooper to shallow right-center that fell in between Poulk, Jones and Payne for a single. Schaus scored on the play and Parker went around to third. John Hinson made it three softly hit balls in a row to right-center. This one scored Parker and sent Freeman to third. Drew Taylor replaced Shunick at this point and got pinch-hitter J.D. Burgess to ground into a double play. Freeman scored the go-ahead run on the play.
Matt Vaughn replaced Mitchell to start the eighth, faced seven batters over the final two innings and retired six of them for his sixth save. Mitchell got the win with seven solid innings, allowing two unearned runs on seven hits. He walked one and struck out five.
NC State and Clemson will conclude their three-game series on Sunday at 1 p.m. The game will be broadcast live on WKNC-FM (88.1) and can be heard on the internet at gopack.com through Pack Pass.
