The best pitching performances in Wolfpack baseball history

NC State has made it within an eyelash of playing in the College World Series best-of-three finals, thanks in great part to some of the greatest postseason pitching performances in school history.

Junior Reid Johnston and redshirt freshman Sam Highfill earned the wins against Stanford and Vanderbilt that put Elliott Avent’s team in the driver’s seat going into Friday’s 2 p.m. game against the defending national champion Commodores, with help from reliever Evan Justice.

Highfill’s performance in a 1-0 win over future top-five major league draft pick Jack Leiter was particularly impressive, earning him a spot in the list of all-time clutch pitching performances by Wolfpack hurlers.

Here are a half-dozen other games on that belong on that list in the long history of NC State baseball, though there are surely others to be considered.

Davey Robertson was one of the first superstar athletes in NC State history, and the four-sport athlete showed why in a duel against pitcher Ernie Shore of Guilford College.

They both eventually ended up in the major leagues after being signed by New York Giants talent hog John McGraw, but as collegians, they faced each other several times.

Nothing was quite like this windy spring day at Riddick Stadium, as Robertson struck out a pre-NCAA record 23 Quaker batters in a nine-inning contest and earned a 5-2 victory over Shore.

In dominating fashion, Robertson struck out the side in the first, fourth, fifth, eighth and ninth innings.

It was one of many grand pitching performances Robertson had for an A&M squad that posted an 18-3 record that season, plus a win over the American League Philadelphia Athletics in a preseason exhibition game.

Robertson struck out 13 batters at Georgetown in Washington, D.C., and pitched a pair of 1-hitters against Wake Forest, striking out 14 in one game and 11 in the other. He pitched the only no-hitter of his college career against Virginia Tech on May at Riddick Field, a 4-0 victory in which he struck out 17.

LSU’s Butch Mixon eventually surpassed Robertson’s total in 1959 to set the NCAA mark with 24 strikeouts, while five others fanned as many as 23.

On April 3, 1971, Miami of Ohio and future major league pitcher Mike Schultz struck out 26 batters for his 27 outs against Wright State. That NCAA record still stands more than a half century later.

Sadly, Robertson broke both shoulders playing in an A&M football game against Bucknell later that year and lost his pinpoint control as a pitcher. He still became a solid power-hitting third baseman and outfielder who twice led the National League in home runs.

Robertson’s 23 strikeouts was an unrecognized record for an NC State pitcher and was not surpassed until the spring of 2009, in an 18-inning game against Akron, in which a handful of Wolfpack pitchers combined to strike out 31 hitters in what was then the longest game in NC State baseball history.

In its first two decades as a conference, the ACC didn’t have a championship tournament, relying on the final league standings to decide its champion. On the final day of the 1968 regular season, Wolfpack coach Sam Esposito sent freshman lefthander Mike Caldwell of Tarboro out to face Wake Forest, with a chance to win the school’s first ACC title in front of some 4,000 spectators at Doak Field.

On the first pitch of the game, Wake’s Dave Callison singled up the middle. However, he was quickly erased trying to steal by Wolfpack catcher Francis Combs. Caldwell then mowed down 26 of the next 27 Deacon batters, allowing only a walk to Callison.

No other Deacon hitter reached base in the game, and Callison never made it to second.

All the Wolfpack runs came in the fourth inning, when Dave Boyer bunted his way to first, Combs beat out an infield shot that hit first base, Boyer scored on a wild pitch and two more runs scored on a bases loaded error.

Caldwell needed only 77 pitches in the 1-hit, 4-0 shutout victory – his seventh complete game of the season – to clinch the title and the Wolfpack’s spot in the four-team NCAA District III championship in Gastonia, where Caldwell beat Alabama and heavily favored Florida State to earn the program’s first trip to the College World Series.

Caldwell finished the season 8-2, with a 1.99 earned run average. One of his two losses on the year came in the 12th inning in a heartbreaking game against St. John’s.

Sophomore dual-sport stars Mike Dempsey and Tim Stoddard entered the first-ever Atlantic Coast Conference baseball tournament with sore, tired arms after first helping the men’s basketball season to an undefeated 27-0 record and then racing to the baseball field to pitch for Esposito’s second-in-the-ACC-standings squad.

Heavily favored and regular-season winner Clemson received a bye in the inaugural championship tournament, played in Chapel Hill, while the Wolfpack came up through the loser’s bracket to play for the title. It quickly became evident in that event of nearly 50 years ago why the ACC has needed a half-dozen format changes to determine its league champion.

The second-seeded Wolfpack won its first game against Duke on Thursday, but lost its second to Virginia on Friday. It needed Saturday wins over Wake Forest and the Cavaliers for the right to play the unbeaten Tigers twice in the tournament’s Sunday finals.

In the first game, Clemson took a 4-1 lead after seven innings, but the Wolfpack tied it with a three-run Pat Korsnick triple in the eighth and won it 8-4 with an offensive explosion in the 10th. Exhausted Bob Anderson, who started the previous night against the Cavaliers, pitched the final four wins for the victory.

In the second game, Esposito was pretty much out of mound options except for his talented sophomores. Dempsey pitched all 10 innings in the loss to Virginia on Friday, while Stoddard had a complete-game victory against Wake on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Clemson had fresh ace Mark Adams, who had not pitched yet in the tournament.

Dempsey lasted only one and a third innings against the Tigers’ impressive offense, while Stoddard surprised everyone by coming in to pitch six gutsy innings. The Wolfpack took a 1-0 lead early on a home run by substitute Bill Russell, who was rushed into action at first base when Dan Zagorski broke his wrist the day before. Russell later scored the go-ahead run after Stoddard allowed two runs on an inside-the-park homer, giving the burly pitcher a lead before he left.

“We had no idea what we were going to do about our pitching,” Esposito said after the game. “We played it as we went along. We just hoped we would find someone who was hot. Mike Dempsey said he would try it, but his arm was hurting after the first inning. Timmy came in and did a great job for six innings.

“I never dreamed he would go more than one.”

Senior closer Rich Phillips came in to relieve Stoddard in the eighth inning and retired six of the eight Tigers he faced for the save.

“He was just great,” Esposito said. “No one ever hears anything about Rich, but he is 5-1 and has four saves. He’s done a great job; he’s been tremendous all year.”

Phillips had not allowed an earned run to that point in the season.

Terry Harvey’s claims to fame as a dual-sport superstar for the Wolfpack include winning bowl games, setting passing records, hearing his name called five times in the major league draft of amateur players and being the only pitcher to ever throw a no-hitter against Florida State.

The native Lawrenceville, Georgia—who was recruited to play both football and baseball for the Wolfpack—made a spectacular debut as a starter for Ray Tanner’s team as a freshman in 1992. Harvey held Wake Forest without a hit for 8 1/3 innings. A ninth-inning bobble by the Wolfpack shortstop—and a non-home-field-advantage ruling by the official scorekeeper—was deemed an infield single to end his no-hit bid, though he still recorded his first career win.

The next season, when Harvey was a sophomore, he made sure he completed the feat—against one of the most formidable lineups in the country—even after allowing a couple of early baserunners. In the second inning, shortstop Ryan Ferby mishandled a hard-hit grounder for a fairly obvious error. The next inning, third baseman Tim Tracey made an exceptional play on an infield bleeder, throwing out the FSU runner in a bang-bang play at first.

Harvey scattered four walks in the game, but only two lazy fly balls left the infield all day and he struck out what was then a career-high 11 batters.

In the critical final two innings, Harvey mowed down the Seminole offense, ending the no-hitter with three easy ground balls in the ninth.

In the 2,262 games Florida State played before that day, and the 1,900 or so it has played after, no other pitcher has ever no-hit the Seminoles.

Sometimes the stars align and a team just has a day. It doesn’t always have to happen in the postseason.

Such was the case on May 15, 2004, when NC State traveled to play No. 1 Texas in a regular-season doubleheader at Disch-Falk Field in in Austin, Texas. The Longhorns had a stacked offense and the nation’s top pitcher, J.P. Howell, which was plenty to take the Longhorns all the way to the College World Series Championship game in the old format.

The Wolfpack, however, had two exceptional pitchers that year, redshirt sophomore Mike Rogers and senior Vern Sterry, and they both showed why they eventually became top picks in the major league draft of amateur players.

On that bright Saturday afternoon, Rogers and Sterry both pitched three-hit shutouts to record 2-0 and 1-0 victories, respectively, over the top-ranked Longhorns on their home field. Rogers, of Hamilton, New Jersey, recorded 10 strikeouts and retired the final 18 batters in order for his seventh road win of the season. Rogers’ performance was particularly clutch, as he ended three of the first four innings with Texas runners on third base.

Sterry, of Rowland Heights, California, struck out 11 and got all the run support he needed in the top of the first inning when lead-off hitter Matt Camp walked, stole second base and scored on a Bryan Kinneberg RBI-single. Sterry never allowed a runner past second base and retired 13 of the Texas’s last 14 batters.

It was the first time an Elliott Avent squad had ever beaten the No. 1 team in the nation twice in the same day and the first time in 108 years of Texas baseball that the Longhorns were shutout in both games of a doubleheader.

The two pitchers shared the National Pitcher of the Week honors for their performances.

Never mind that sophomore lefthander Carlos Rodon was facing rival North Carolina in the opening game of the 2013 College World Series. What was most daunting about the assignment for the future first-round pick was that he was going up against the overall No. 1 seed in the championship tournament and one of the best offenses in the nation.

The Holly Springs, North Carolina, product had had a dominant sophomore season to that point. Earlier in the spring he combined with teammate Karl Klegovits to no-hit LaSalle, one of fewer than 10 no-hitters in NC State baseball history.

Facing Tar Heel ace Kent Emanuel, however, was a different stage, and Rodon was up to the challenge. He allowed just five hits, struck out eight and walked just one. He gave up a meaningless run in the bottom of the ninth to prevent getting a shutout.

The Wolfpack offense, led by All-American shortstop and future first-round pick Trea Turner, gave Rodon all the support he needed, with a five-run burst in the fourth inning.

Four nights later, the top-ranked Tar Heels faced Rodon again, and eliminated the Wolfpack with a 7-0 victory.

Rodon is now in his seventh season with the Chicago White Sox and on April 14 he threw one of the six no-hitters in the major leagues so far this season, beating Cleveland 8-0.

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