Wolfpack downs Gamecocks! Needs one to advance to Super Regional
Great night at the Doak as a horrendous umpiring crew still were not able to keep the Wolfpack from notching an important and impressive win over Ray Tanner’s South Carolina Gamecocks in Raleigh.
In fact, this win was so impressive and so important that it will easily rank in the Top 5 wins of the 2007-2008 season for all NC State sports.
N.C. State got everything it needed Saturday night to beat South Carolina. And for the Pack, it took a little of everything.
The top-seeded Wolfpack fought past the Gamecocks 5-4 in the NCAA Raleigh Regional at Doak Field in what both coaches — State’s Elliott Avent and South Carolina’s Ray Tanner — called, simply put, a great college baseball game.
What did it take to win and move one victory away from reaching a Super Regional? State (40-20) got another strong, quality start from crafty Clayton Shunick and then solid relief pitching. The Pack had clutch hits. It made huge fielding plays. It seemingly made all the right moves
PP: Jones drives in game winner against USC
N&O’s ACCNow: Noting the Raleigh Regional
State, which last won a regional in 2003, plays at 6 tonight needing one more victory to advance to the Super Regional round. The second-seeded Gamecocks (39-22) face fourth seed James Madison (39-18) at 1 p.m., with the winner advancing to take on the Pack.
36 Responses to “Wolfpack downs Gamecocks! Needs one to advance to Super Regional”
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I don’t like to do this (getting way ahead here) but if the chips fall our way and we win tonite.. and GT goes on to take the Athens regional we would stand a very good chance of hosting the super regional.
First things first.. take care of business tonite Pack!
Since JMU beat Charlotte, it seems to me that we advance even with a loss to Charlotte. Am I missing something?
Yeah , it’s double elimination.
South Carolina and JMU each have one loss, so got to hang another loss on the winner of that to advance
Cap’t, t’s not getting ahead of ourselves to look at it that way. It’s just being observant of the landscape sorrounding this NCAA tourney.
We as Wolfpack fans think it’s taboo to recognize these things because we have learned to expect back fires. We can only hope that Surkamp and the bullpen give us a chance tonight. Our hitters had some good AB’s most of the night against USC, and they looked extremely confident against the Cocks bullpen.
Look, with the hitters in their stacked lineup there is an obvious reason USC was never near taking control of the SEC; Tanner did not recruit depth in the pitching department. It would not be the least bit surprising if they get into a slug fest this afternoon w/UNCC.
We will take care of business tonight and play our best baseball, I’m optimistic for it (as usual). Go Pack!
ragingwolf, we don’t play charlotte tonite, they are already out. The format for the regionals is not the same as the ACC tourney. Double elimination means we face the winner of tonite JMU-USC game. If we lose, there’d be a winner take all rematch on Monday.
VT by getting ahead I meant even though the odds are in our favor now several things have to happen in order for us to host that super regional. Let’s go Pack (and go GT too!)
I just hope the winner of the JMU/USC game sees righties all game… then has to see Surkamp for 8 innings.
I know, I’m a nitpicker, but did anyone else notice that Gametracker did not have most THE HOST team’s player bio’s and pictures available? USC had all of their players documented. I find that odd and even more puzzling because part of NC State’s roster showed up, while a majority of them were blank and unavailable.
Could have been beyond our control, but I’d bet money it was the SID.
Thanks for the clarification guys. I haven’t followed baseball much in the past so I am learning the post-season formats. Last week, in the ACC tourney, it seemed as if the format was not double elimination. It appeared to be a round-robin, which we would have advanced on had we beaten Miami in our third game. Is that accurate?
Redfred- I don’t know for certain, but I would surmise it has something to do with the handling of the individual websites. When I was putting together the preview, I noticed CSTV (where gametracker is) hosts South Carolina’s baseball site.
RagingWolf- You are correct on the ACC tourney; we would have advanced had we beaten Miami. The ACC switched to the round-robin, two bracket style in order to make it a little less stressfull on pitchers (among other reasons). The format eliminates the need for playing 2 games in one day.
Thanks DBP, but I still don’t understand why part of the NCSU players showed and others wouldn’t. I guess maybe it was CSTV’s fault.
USC up 4-3 on James Madison in the 5th. Smoak has been on fire so far; 2-2 with 2 Home Runs.
CSTV has the contract to host the website for most major college athletics programs. NCSU partners with a different company for gopack.com. I imagine schools using CSTV already have their info and pictures in the Gametracker system, while we do not.
Hey Redfred, the cstv interactive bracket with gametracker content has the state pictures:
http://www.cstv.com/gametracker/brackets/cws/2008/08_cws_bracket.html?from=tab
JMU Ties Carolina in the 9th!
Gamecocks, 7-5
FYI– you can listen to the game free on SC’s website. You need to register–but it is free. I just did that because our site seems to be down right now
For a minute there I thought we took the lead 1-0 but it appears gametracker has the logos switched. Its actually USC 1-0 bottom 1st on a home run.
we seem to be having trouble throwing strikes!?
It just wouldn’t be very “NC State” without us fucking something up that thousands of fans are counting on, in this case PackPass, which is currently inoperable because Gopack.com isn’t loading.
Here is a link to the USC radio broadcast:
http://gateway.andohs.net/player/default_noax.aspx?nid=2920&sid=2997&customlogo=
PackPass is up now
Score? Update?
1-1 going into the top of 6–just got out of a rain delay
avent——–dont wait too long to make changes!!