North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Ciencin Has Been a Big Hit
10/30/2009 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. – There were times last season, Andrew Ciencin admits, that he was completely miserable. And it had nothing to do with NC State's losing baseball season.
The competitive infielder just wanted to find a way to get on the field as a freshman, and sitting on the bench was driving him a little crazy.
"Being on the bench was not fun," Ciencin said. "I had to figure out a way to get into the lineup. Eventually, you just keep working through practice and showing the coaches what you can do. I had to hit or go back to Jersey. I made some changes to my swing and got better."
The all-state performer from Cranford, N.J., had arrived with impressive credentials at the plate: for his four-year career at Cranford High School, he had 20 home runs, 61 doubles, 137 RBIs and a career .473 batting average. As a senior, he hit better than .500 with nine home runs and 41 RBIs.
He did well during fall practice last year, even though he thought head coach Elliott Avent was picking on him at times.
"I felt like coach was on me every day about something," Ciencin said. "I was feeling like I couldn't do anything right. I know he was just trying to get the most out of me. That's what he does with everyone."
And, it eventually paid off. Ciencin was on the bench when the season started, but he began working harder in the batting cages and found the rhythm in his swing.
"You feel like you can't do anything to help the team win when you're sitting on the bench," he said. "You try to do things on the bench to be positive towards the guys. The only way I really felt I could help was to be in the lineup.
"I just took advantage of every situation I had in that time frame. It was a good year. You learn a lot from losing seasons and that's basically what happened last year."
Two weeks into the season, Avent shifted his lineup around, moving Kyle Wilson to center field, Dallas Poulk to shortstop and Ciencin to second base, a position he had never played before. But he continued to perform, leading the team with a .308 batting average and a .421 slugging percentage.
| Day | Time | Pitching matchups | |
| Friday | 6 p.m. | Jake Buchanan (Jr., rhp) vs. Cory Mazzoni (Fr., rhp) | |
| Saturday | 3:30 p.m. | Grant Sasser (Jr., lhp) vs. Nate King (Jr., lhp) | |
| Sunday | 1 p.m. | Mike Clark (Fr., lhp) vs. Mike Russo (Soph., rhp) | |
"Anything can happen," Ciencin said. "Most of the time I'm at third base, but I still take double plays at second base just to stay fresh there. It really doesn't matter to me - you still have to field it and throw it to the right base, whereever you are in the infield."
Ciencin honed his skills this summer playing for the most successful summer-league team in the country, the Forest City Owls of the Coastal Plain League. Ciencin spent the first summer session in school in Raleigh, but got a call from Wolfpack teammate Pratt Maynard saying that his summer league team had just lost its second baseman to the draft and wondered if he would like to join the squad.
In 28 summer games in the wooden bat league, Ciencin hit .298, with a couple of home runs and 15 RBIs. More importantly, he helped Forest City compile a 51-9 record en route to the CPL championship, the best record of any summer league team. In the playoffs, Ciencin was 8-for-19.
He hopes that success will carry over for the Wolfpack this spring, thanks to the hard lessons the returning veterans learned during last year's 25-31 season and the influx of talent from a nationally ranked recruiting class.
"I'm looking forward to this spring," Ciencin said. "I know [with] the talent we have on this team, we can do something good. I think this year we're more of a team.
"The team chemistry we have right now is fantastic. Hopefully, we can do big things."
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
