NC State Scratches, Claws to Win Against Georgia Tech

Image credit: NC State CF Devonte Brown (Photo courtesy of NC State)

RALEIGH — North Carolina State on Friday won a 8-6 contest with No. 16 Georgia Tech in a game that isn’t likely to be remembered for its beauty. 

Neither starting pitcher—NC State righthander Sam Highfill or Georgia Tech righthander Chance Huff—pitched into the fifth inning, and the teams combined for five errors, to say nothing of a handful of other defensive miscues that won’t show up in the box score. 

But even an ugly win is a good win when a team has been struggling to find its footing, as has been the case with an NC State team that came into the game 1-4 in ACC play and had gone 4-8 since starting the season 8-0. 

“It’s just a big win,” NC State coach Elliott Avent said. “Winning is good, losing is bad, and when you lose and when you have heartbreakers, it can get to you a little bit, losing can get to you.”

The fourth inning best exemplifies the kind of game this was. 

You could argue it should have been a scoreless inning for Highfill, keeping the game 1-1, but a wild pitch scored the first Georgia Tech run of the frame with two outs. NC State later had a chance to limit the damage to just a 2-1 deficit, but catcher Jacob Cozart couldn’t corral a throw home from right fielder Will Marcy that had Georgia Tech’s Jack Rubenstein nailed at home trying to score on a Tres Gonzalez single by several steps. Two batters after that, Andrew Jenkins slugged a three-run homer and it was quickly 6-1 Yellow Jackets. 

But rather than a low point, the fourth inning ended up a turning point for the Wolfpack. In the bottom half, the first five NC State hitters reached, and with the help of two errors, a passed ball and a pair of walks, by the time Tommy White slammed an RBI double off the wall in right field, NC State had tied it 6-6. 

The Wolfpack took a haymaker, delivered one right back and then served the knockout blow in the fifth, when they took advantage of yet another Georgia Tech error, this one on a routine ground ball with two outs off the bat of Payton Green to shortstop Jadyn Jackson, who had just entered the game that half inning as a defensive replacement. 

A Devonte Brown double scored Green one batter later, and a LuJames Groover III RBI single compounded the miscue and made it 8-6.

“We were just saying that we weren’t going to give up,” Brown said of the mindset as the Wolfpack came to bat in the fourth. “I think in the past it probably looked like we kind of got upset about ourselves, but (this time) we just kept our heads held up high. We knew we needed to put some runs together and have some good ABs.”

But instead of the boxing metaphor of a knockout blow, perhaps the better one is the wrestling metaphor of putting a team in a sleeper hold, because that’s more like what the NC State bullpen did to the Georgia Tech lineup after the five-run fourth inning. 

It started with righthander Logan Adams throwing three scoreless innings and finished with lefthander Chris Villaman putting up zeroes in the final two innings, which included leaving a runner stranded at third to end the game. 

For Villaman, it was the second dominant outing for him in a row after he struck out 12 FSU batters in five innings in his appearance last weekend. And Adams’ performance not only has value in delivering the win Friday but should pay off as the weekend goes on because he kept NC State from having to use multiple pitchers to get through the middle innings. 

“Down 6-1 with two more games left, you can’t just roll everybody out there,” Avent said. “(He’s) pitched well at times, but had some rough outings as well. He really went in and settled that game down for us and gave us a chance to come back.”

The reality is that winning ugly might be the best way for NC State to win games right now as this group tries to come together. 

It’s clear that it’s an incredibly talented bunch, but you can’t overlook how inexperienced it is at this level of college baseball. 

The Friday lineup for NC State included four true freshmen in White, Marcy, Cozart and Green, plus two transfers in Groover and left fielder Dominic Pilolli who are getting their first taste of ACC baseball and a shortstop in Josh Hood who has more or less been out of action the last two seasons since he transferred in from the Ivy League, which didn’t play at all in 2021. 

And with Highfill battling through an injury that forced Avent and pitching coach Clint Chrysler to skip his turn in the rotation last weekend against Florida State and that limited him again Friday despite the righthander being able to talk his coaches into letting him take the ball, the pitching staff also stands to lean on more inexperienced arms for the time being. 

Through that lens, perhaps the errors, the inconsistent offensive production, the extra-inning losses—the Wolfpack has taken one against both Notre Dame and FSU already—and the March swoon more generally should simply be chalked up to what they most likely are, and that’s growing pains. 

And if that’s the case, the last two weekends have to be seen as positive signs of growth. The Wolfpack were one big hit in a 17-inning marathon away from winning a series against a top-10 FSU team on the road, and on Friday it won a game that it easily could have lost against an experienced, high-powered Georgia Tech team. 

“I think we’ve gone through some pretty tough times lately, especially in the 17-inning game with Florida State,” Brown said. “I think that game right there was an eye-opener to who we could be and who we want to be, and I think it just showed tonight.”

This team is still figuring out who it is, but new leaders are emerging but the hope is that growth is soon to follow. 

“I don’t believe in being new. I don’t believe in being young. I just believe you’ve got to play,” Avent said. “There are some differences when you’re playing 18-year-olds instead of 23-year-olds with the Covid (extra eligibility), that’s a different deal, I understand that, but still, they’re the best players. That’s why they’re there. So we can play older if we wanted to, but we feel like these guys are the best players and we’re getting better.”

Come June, if NC State is where they want to be, in the postseason and pushing to make another deep run, this win, a hard-fought one that won’t ever be considered a masterpiece, might just end up being viewed as the turning point.