GREENVILLE, N.C. — NC State baseball vs East Carolina is one of the more underrated rivalries in college baseball and often delivers hotly contested battles.
Tonight was not one of those evenings, though. By the middle of the third inning, this one was practically over.
NC State stepped into Clark-LeClair Stadium and raided ECU in its own home with a 10-3 rout. Collecting runs in five different innings, the Pack took a sledgehammer to East Carolina’s pitching staff.
“This is one of the better rivalries NC State has in baseball and football as well,” head coach Elliott Avent said. “It’s a big-time rivalry… I thought we played very, very, very well against an East Carolina team that’s been playing very, very well.”
The Wolfpack (25-12) played one of its best games of the season. Under the lights in a hostile environment, the red-and-white showed no fear and played the game the right way. The Pirates (22-15-1) crumbled after the first barrage of Wolfpack runs and never recovered. NC State was particularly good about staying patient at the plate with two outs — a major point of emphasis for the Pack recently.
“The biggest thing for us, with coach Avent telling us, is be good with two strikes,” junior third baseman Sherman Johnson said. “We’re a good two strike hitting team, I think a lot of us get hits off of two strikes and just not letting the other team beat us and not letting the pitcher beat us and just sticking to our approach and not getting away from that.”
The Wolfpack started hot, scoring a pair of runs in the second inning. A throwing error by the Pirates allowed sophomore shortstop Mikey Ryan to score first. Freshman right fielder Rett Johnson then tacked on an RBI single to put NC State up 2-0 through two frames.
The early highlight for NC State came in the third when sophomore center fielder Ty Head smacked a 351-foot home run over the right field wall, doubling the Pack’s lead to four. Ryan scored his second run of the day later in the frame, tagging up after a sacrifice fly, extending the red-and-whites’ lead to 5-0.
Among NC State’s hitters, Johnson led the way with three hits in four plate appearances, including a sixth-inning double. The third baseman was money at the plate, patiently waiting for great pitches instead of settling for decent pitches.
“Me and coach Avent actually been working on my swing,” Johnson said. “He says my elbow’s lower then I do better, so I put my elbows lower, start hitting for power, and today I came out here and just hit.”
On the mound, the Wolfpack looked just as impressive. Freshman pitcher Luke Hemric earned the start and delivered four scoreless innings. The lefty’s ability to maintain control around the strike zone while simultaneously putting real speed behind his pitches made life difficult on the Pirates. With seven strikeouts, tied for the second most in Hemric’s career, the southpaw is quickly adjusting to college baseball. At bats that used to be walks earlier in the year are turning into strikeouts for Hemric, making him a dangerous weapon for the Wolfpack.
“Just deep breaths and just talking to myself, knowing I can believe in myself,” Hemric said. “Just trusting my stuff, especially walking that guy in the first inning, it’s just I’ve struggled with walks a lot this year, and just going back to my roots and making sure I’m just confident and believing in myself is the main thing.”
Making his collegiate debut, freshman pitcher Michael Ragusa kept the momentum rolling in the fifth inning. Ragusa tossed his first career strikeout and kept ECU off the board during the frame. However, the Pirates got the best of Ragusa in the sixth inning and scored their first run of the evening with a sacrifice fly ball.
“He was good, Mikey [Ragusa] was really good, we missed him,” Avent said. “He’s really, really good, and he had that lat strain and going on it took forever to come back and then to get him ready to throw, but he was encouraging.”
The Pack rotated through various other freshman pitchers to close the game. While the Pirates managed to hit a two-run homer in the top of the eighth, it didn’t matter as NC State scored three runs of its own in the eighth. The poise of the Wolfpack’s bullpen shouldn’t be overlooked as the group played a crucial role in the win.
“Anytime you can come down here and win a baseball game, it’s huge,” Avent said. “Their offense has been scoring a lot of runs, so if you can hold their offense to three runs, that’s incredible, and I think playing with a lead helped that.”
The win is a critical one for NC State. Using RPI, ECU is NC State’s third-highest rated non-conference foe behind Coastal Carolina and Liberty. Still climbing back from a midseason seven-game losing streak, picking up a valuable win is exactly what the Pack needed for its postseason resume. The red-and-white will have a chance at a sweep against the Pirates in two weeks when ECU visits Raleigh.
Next up, the Wolfpack will remain on the road for an ACC series at Wake Forest. Game one is set for Friday, April 17, at 8 p.m. and will be available on ACC Network Extra.