North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Baseball Hopes to Seize Momemtum
5/12/2009 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. NC State baseball coach Elliott Avent doesn’t necessarily believe that one good weekend is enough to carry his players through the offseason.
So he doesn’t know in what ways his team’s series win over top-ranked North Carolina last weekend at Doak Field at Dail Park will help next year’s Wolfpack. If at all.
“Momentum that isn’t used immediately seems to lose a little steam,” Avent said.
He just wants his team which played its best baseball of the season offensively, defensively and in pitching to seize whatever momentum it has for the final four games of the regular season.
Besides, the Wolfpack (24-28, 10-17 ACC) still has something to play for, beginning with today’s 6:30 p.m. contest against in-state foe Appalachian State. Thursday, the Pack begins a three-game home series with Clemson.
If the Wolfpack sweeps the Tigers, North Carolina sweeps Boston College and Virginia beats Virginia Tech once this weekend, Avent and his team can still qualify for next week’s ACC Tournament in Durham. If not, the Pack will stay home for the first time since the tournament began taking just eight teams in 2006 and the season will end.
Avent admits that it has been a tough year, in which the team had to overcome the loss of its entire starting rotation from the year before. He doesn’t regret moving All-America closer Jimmy Gillheeney from the bullpen to the starting rotation to fill that gap, but mix in some injuries to relievers Alex Sogard, Kyle Rutter and Joey Cutler, and the Wolfpack bullpen has been exceptionally thin all season.
It didn’t help that two players Avent thought would return to this year’s team, outfielders Jeremy Synan and Marcus Jones, signed professional contracts, leaving a leadership void that was hard to replace.
Or that two-sport star Russell Wilson was still recovering from the knee injury he suffered with the football team at the Papajohns.com Bowl in Birmingham last December during the early part of the baseball season and unable to play.
Avent also had to shift players around on defense, moving shortstop Kyle Wilson to center field and second baseman Dallas Poulk to shortstop and relying on younger players to take on starting roles earlier than he expected.
All those changes created some problems as March turned into April and April turned to May. But everything clicked perfectly last weekend against the Tar Heels, who entered the series ranked No. 1 in the Baseball America poll.
“With all the things that have gone on, it’s encouraging to see the guys understand the series with North Carolina and understand how important that is to this program and to our fans,” Avent said. “We played our best baseball of the season this weekend. I think that is important. I think it is encouraging about who we can be. I am very proud of our kids for the effort they displayed this weekend.”
But the coach also knows that his team has a difficult challenge to extend this season, since there are so many variables involved. He just hopes that his players take some time to reflect on what happened this season so that it doesn’t happen again.
“Being in this situation where so many things have to happen, it makes you look back on all the other things that happened to us this year,” Avent said. “We had a 10-2 lead at Boston College and lost. We were ahead 7-0 at Duke on Sunday, and up 7-5 with two outs and two strikes on the hitter in the 10th inning, and lost. We had a 7-0 lead in our Sunday game against Miami, and lost.
“Now, you look back on every game that we blew this season and the position it puts you in. You have to use that as a teaching tool.”
Still, winning two out of three against the Tar Heels, does give the Wolfpack some reason for optimism that Avent hopes his players will take with them as they head off to play in summer leagues and as they return for fall practice.
“I hope it makes them persevere and grind to make sure that something like [this season] never happens again,” Avent said.
For his part, Avent and his staff are out looking to sign a recruiting class that will make up for some of the team’s pitching deficiencies and hoping that the upcoming major league draft of first-year players doesn’t decimate what is already a promising class.
“We're out scouring the country, looking for the players we need for next year,” the coach said. “Hopefully, the draft this year won’t cost us.”
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
