Wolfpack downs Gamecocks! Needs one to advance to Super Regional

Baseball36

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

N&O: Pack Plays Complete Game

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.

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36 Responses to Wolfpack downs Gamecocks! Needs one to advance to Super Regional

  1. CaptainCraptacular 06/01/2008 at 8:48 AM #

    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!

  2. RagingWolf 06/01/2008 at 9:55 AM #

    Since JMU beat Charlotte, it seems to me that we advance even with a loss to Charlotte. Am I missing something?

  3. Astral Rain 06/01/2008 at 9:56 AM #

    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

  4. vtpackfan 06/01/2008 at 10:18 AM #

    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!

  5. CaptainCraptacular 06/01/2008 at 10:21 AM #

    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.

  6. CaptainCraptacular 06/01/2008 at 10:30 AM #

    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!)

  7. Dr. BadgerPack 06/01/2008 at 10:37 AM #

    I just hope the winner of the JMU/USC game sees righties all game… then has to see Surkamp for 8 innings.

  8. redfred2 06/01/2008 at 11:15 AM #

    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.

  9. RagingWolf 06/01/2008 at 11:20 AM #

    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?

  10. Dr. BadgerPack 06/01/2008 at 11:25 AM #

    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.

  11. Dr. BadgerPack 06/01/2008 at 11:46 AM #

    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.

  12. redfred2 06/01/2008 at 11:57 AM #

    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.

  13. Dr. BadgerPack 06/01/2008 at 1:28 PM #

    USC up 4-3 on James Madison in the 5th. Smoak has been on fire so far; 2-2 with 2 Home Runs.

  14. Wxwolf 06/01/2008 at 1:30 PM #

    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.

  15. CaptainCraptacular 06/01/2008 at 2:34 PM #

    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

  16. CaptainCraptacular 06/01/2008 at 2:36 PM #

    JMU Ties Carolina in the 9th!

  17. kool k 06/01/2008 at 2:53 PM #

    Gamecocks, 7-5

  18. fer06 06/01/2008 at 4:55 PM #

    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

  19. CaptainCraptacular 06/01/2008 at 5:14 PM #

    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.

  20. fer06 06/01/2008 at 5:16 PM #

    we seem to be having trouble throwing strikes!?

  21. Dogbreath 06/01/2008 at 5:23 PM #

    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=

  22. fer06 06/01/2008 at 5:50 PM #

    PackPass is up now

  23. StateFans 06/01/2008 at 7:38 PM #

    Score? Update?

  24. fer06 06/01/2008 at 7:44 PM #

    1-1 going into the top of 6–just got out of a rain delay

  25. fer06 06/01/2008 at 8:03 PM #

    avent——–dont wait too long to make changes!!

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