5/29/2018 baseball Edit

Elliott Avent, NC State baseball happy to be hosting

Matt Carter • TheWolfpackCentral

Editor

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NC State baseball head coach Elliott Avent was a bit perplexed at the notion that his ball club was going through a bit of a lull after a hot start.

It is true that the Pack has gone 9-9 in its last 18 games after starting 31-7. All but one of those setbacks however were to teams in the NCAA baseball tournament field, including five defeats to teams that received national seeds (top eight seed). Those five losses were by a combined 11 runs, with two of them coming in walk-off fashion in extra innings at Florida State.

“I feel as good about this team’s chances right now as I have all year long,” Avent insisted.

NCSU, which has been ranked as high as No. 2 in the college baseball polls this season, managed to secure a NCAA regional host site as the No. 16 seed. It was the final regional host selected based on the seeding, but Avent was not offended.

“Not at all,” Avent said. “[The NCAA baseball tournament committee has] a tough job. It’s an unbelievable job. I know they got some great baseball people on that committee. The great thing, I think, is having baseball people who have been in those situations either as a player or a coach — it’s in an environment that you understand.”

NCSU will have a star-studded regional. Second-seed Auburn is led by ace pitcher Casey Mize, the projected top overall pick in next week’s MLB Draft. Northeastern is the three seed and will open against Auburn in a rematch of a three-game set from earlier in the year that the Tigers won 2 of 3.

The Pack will start against Army after the Black Knights won the Patriot League by defeating archrival Navy in the conference finals. This week will be used by Avent and his staff to nail down scouting reports on the opponents, but one advantage will be keeping a normal routine, one of the perks of being a host site.

“How you play is more important than where you play, but sleeping in your own bed, comfort of you own ballpark, knowing your ballpark, routines are the same, stuff like that, and you’re used to how this ballpark plays — I think it’s nice,” Avent admitted. “It’s not like playing your own golf course where you know where you need to hit the ball.”

Avent is hopeful that his team will enter the regional as healthy as it has been all season. Two valuable pitchers in sixth-year senior Johnny Piedmonte and sophomore Michael Bienlien have been in particular performing through injuries all season.

Avent was able to rest his club in between the regular-season ending FSU series on the road and the ACC Tournament, and neither Piedmonte nor Bienlien pitched in the postseason yet. Avent said both are about as healthy as they have been all season.

Another reason for the optimism from Avent is the approach he has seen from him squad all season.

“This team has played good from start to finish, been very consistent,” he said. “Probably the most consistent team we’ve had here in a long, long time.”

He added that despite NCSU’s potent lineup scoring just four runs in two games at the ACC Tournament, he has a smart club that understands sometimes you have to tip your hat to the pitchers — in this case a pair of hurlers who have been among the conference’s better performers all year.

“Yogi Berra said he understood how Sandy Koufax won 25 games he just can’t understand how he lost three,” Avent noted. “You can hit as much as you want to hit, but when you run into that guy on the mound — that guy that night — there is nothing that you did wrong. You just got to find a way to win.

“I don’t think our bats have cooled off so much as we have seen some outstanding pitching.”

The last three years, NC State has lost a series of heartbreaking, deciding regional finals. In 2015 at TCU, the Pack had an 8-1 lead going into the bottom of the eight before a series of miscues led to an extra inning loss. A year later at home, NCSU was a strike away from eliminating eventual national champion Coastal Carolina before a soft liner was trapped by sliding right fielder Brock Deatherage and led to the game-winning runs being scored.

Last year, NC State led 5-4 going into the seventh at Kentucky before the Wildcats scored three times that inning and three more in the ninth to eliminate NCSU.

There are seven seniors on NC State’s roster who have been through a lot of regional action, which is another reason why Avent likes his squad.

“It helps a lot,” he said. “You want to be relaxed, but you want to be hungry at the same time. It’s a fine line, but at the same time you got to walk that line where it is.”