Baseball Takes First Game From Duke, 8-3

RALEIGH, N.C. – Drew Poulk continued his torrid hitting and Jake Buchanan pitched his second complete game of the season Thursday night to lift NC State past Duke 8-3 in the first game of a critical three-game Atlantic Coast Conference series.

The Wolfpack’s win, coupled with North Carolina’s 13-6 victory over Virginia Tech, and Georgia Tech’s 15-8 win at Boston College tightened the race for both the seventh and eighth spots in the eight-team field for next week’s ACC Tournament.  NC State, which is now 34-20 overall, moved into a tie for seventh place with Boston College at 14-15 in the overall ACC standings. North Carolina improved to 12-16 with its win over the Hokies and is one game back in ninth place. Complicating matters for the Wolfpack is the fact that the Tar Heels and Eagles both have the tiebreaker over the Pack in case of any ties in the final standings.

Buchanan improved to 7-4 with a workmanlike performance. He scattered nine hits, struck out nine and walked three. Buchanan struggled through the middle innings of the game, allowing six hits, a walk and a hit batter from the third through the sixth innings, but settled in at the end of the sixth and wound up retiring 10 of the last 12 Blue Devil batters of the game.

Marcus Stroman (6-4) took the loss for Duke, which fell to 29-25 with the loss, 8-20 in the ACC. Stroman allowed six runs on six hits in five innings. He walked five and struck out five.

NC State took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first on back-to-back home runs by cousins Dallas and Drew Poulk, Dallas’s to right and Drew’s to left. Duke got one run back in the top of the second on an RBI single by Ryan McCurdy.

Drew Poulk made it 4-1 with a jaw-dropping two-run home run through the left-field lights in the bottom of the third. The two home runs, which came in Poulk’s only two official at-bats of the game, increased his recent hot streak to 14 hits in his last 18 at-bats. He has three doubles and four home runs in that span.

Jonathan Foreman drove in Jeremy Gould with a two-out double to right-center in the top of the fourth to cut the NC State lead to 4-2, but Dallas Poulk made it 6-2 with a two-out double to left-center, chasing home John Gianis and Kyle Wilson.

Duke’s final run came in the top of the sixth. Dennis O’Grady was hit by a pitch, stole second, went to third on an infield single by Foreman, and scored on Ryan McCurdy’s sacrifice fly.

The Wolfpack made it 7-3 in the bottom of the sixth. Matt Bergquist led off and singled down the left-field line. Kyle Wilson laid down a perfect bunt along the first-base line and beat it out for an infield single. Reliever Ben Grisz hit Drew Poulk with a pitch, the 83rd time an NC State hitter has been plunked this season, a new school record. Andrew Ciencin got Bergquist home with a sacrifice fly.

Kyle Wilson led off the bottom of the eighth and reached on a throwing error by Foreman, the Duke third baseman. Christopher Manno relieved Grisz, and Dallas Poulk bunted right back to Manno, who threw to second base in plenty of time to retire Wilson, only the throw was wide of the bag and sailed into center field for an error. Drew Poulk walked to load the bases, and this time it was Pratt Maynard supplying the sacrifice fly.

NC State and Duke will play the second game of the series on Friday at 6:30 p.m. The game will be broadcast live on WKNC-FM and on-line at gopack.com.

North Carolina State University Athletics

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