North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Pack's Explosive Bats Head To ACCs
5/25/2010 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. – For NC State baseball coach Elliott Avent, it's not so much that a half-dozen players have hit so many home runs; it's when they have hit them.
Heading into Wednesday's 8 p.m. opener against Clemson in the ACC Championship in Greensboro, the Wolfpack has hit 90 home runs, the fourth most in a single season in school history and second in the ACC only to Georgia Tech, which has an NCAA-leading 111 homers for the season. Included in NC State's total is a school-record eight grand slams.
The total of 90 trails only the school record of 123 home runs hit in 1988, the 105 hit in 1994 and the 94 hit by the 1987 team.
In all, five players have contributed double-digit round-trippers, led by senior outfielder Drew Poulk with 13, junior catcher Chris Schaeffer with 11 and senior second baseman Dallas Poulk, sophomore first baseman Harold Riggins and sophomore infielder Pratt Maynard with 10 apiece.
Sophomore infielder Andrew Ciencin also has nine homers heading into the tournament, including a school-record four grand slams. If he hits another, it will be the first time since 1988 that the Wolfpack has had six players in the lineup with double-digit home runs, when Turtle Zaun (25), Bryn Kosco (17), Bill Klenoshek (15), Dell Ahalt (14), Brian Bark (13) and Gary Shingledecker (10) all contributed 10 or more. The only other season the Wolfpack had five players in double figures was 1987.
What Avent appreciates, however, is the timeliness of his team's big hits this season.
"Hitting 90 home runs is a great feat, but having a lot of them mean something is what makes that number special," Avent said. "We know there are a lot of home runs hit when you are up 7-2 in the ninth inning and everybody is swinging out of their shoes because they don't have the pressure of trying to win the ball game. They don't even factor in the outcome of the game.
"With this team, the home runs they hit mean something."
Just a few examples:
- Early in the season, Russell Wilson hit a walk-off home run to beat nationally ranked UC-Irvine at the Baseball at the Beach tournament in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
- Against Virginia on April 2, both Kyle Wilson and Dallas Poulk hit game-tying two-run homers in the eighth and ninth innings. The Wolfpack eventually won the game against the nationally ranked Cavaliers in extra innings. Two days later, Schaeffer hit a game-tying solo homer that sent the game into extra innings. Again, the Wolfpack beat the Cavs.
- Perhaps nothing was more critical than the home runs hit in last weekend's final regular-season series against Duke, in which the Wolfpack needed a sweep to ensure a berth into the ACC Tournament. The Poulk cousins hit back-to-back home runs to give their team an early 2-0 lead. In the second game, Riggins smashed a bottom-of-the-ninth homer to send the game to extra innings, where the Wolfpack won 7-6 in the 12th.
There's no concrete explanation for the Wolfpack's offensive explosion this year. Hitting coach Chris Hart made some small adjustments to the lineup's mental approach to each at-bat. Former player Aaron Bates, now with the Boston Red Sox organization, stopped by before he went to spring training to give the Wolfpack batters a few hitting tips and to analyze their swings. Not everyone in the lineup played summer league baseball last year, but those who did performed well.
"Part of it is luck, part of it is perseverance," Avent said. "I think Chris Hart did a great job getting the team ready. These guys are a year older. They really grew up in the summer leagues. They all came back to school with a lot of confidence."
That confidence didn't just appear in the batting cages, however. It was developed as the Wolfpack became more comfortable in the field and with the pitching staff, two things that were not guaranteed last year, when the team struggled in all phases of the game.
"I think confidence has a lot to do with it," said Schaffer, who hit three home runs in a single game earlier this year. "We struggled everywhere last year, on the field, at the plate. This year we had a lot of young guys who came in and took care of a lot of things defensively. It allowed our hitters to relax a little bit.
"We are able just to go up there and swing."
And the results have been explosive.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
