The NC State baseball team traveled to Minneapolis, Minnesota this weekend to face off against some Big Ten Conference competition, and today it beat the first of its opponents in U.S. Bank Stadium, the Iowa Hawkeyes, by a score of 10-6.
It didn’t take long for the Wolfpack (9-0) to get on the board in the first inning, as junior first baseman and leadoff hitter Austin Murr swung on the first pitch he saw and hit a solo shot over the right-field wall. But other than that minor slipup, the Iowa (3-4) pitching was able to silence Wolfpack bats for the rest of the early innings.
In the fourth inning, the Pack’s offense started to wake up. After junior outfielder Devonte Brown walked, a single from sophomore DH Luca Tresh and a walk from junior outfielder Jonny Butler, sophomore third baseman Vojtech Mensik hit a ball that dropped into center field, driving in Brown and doubling the Wolfpack advantage.
Junior second baseman J.T. Jarrett followed that up with another base hit that scored Tresh and gave the Wolfpack a 3-0 lead. With the bases still loaded and only one out, Murr earned an RBI on a walk and a groundout to second by sophomore outfielder Tyler McDonough drove in Mensik. By the time the Hawkeyes could get out of the inning, the Wolfpack had stretched it’s lead to 5-0.
Meanwhile, junior pitcher Reid Johnston made sure his team would keep the lead once it got it. Johnston played four innings of no-hit baseball and allowed his first run on a sacrifice fly that followed his sixth strikeout of the game. It signaled the end of the afternoon for Johnston, but by the time he was pulled out of the game, he’d made sure he’d done his part to preserve the Wolfpack lead, as NC State still led 5-1 at the end of five innings.
In the top of the seventh, the Hawkeyes not only chipped away at the Wolfpack lead, but completely erased it. Base hit after base hit seemed to be falling in for Iowa, even after the Pack twice changed pitchers on the mound. Freshman Sam Highfill was able to stop the bleeding and get the third out of the inning, but the game was now tied 5-5.
The 5-5 tie lasted just as long as the 0-0 tie to start the game, as junior catcher Patrick Bailey hit a leadoff homer to start the inning. Even though the Wolfpack bats were silenced the rest of the inning, NC State held the lead once again against Iowa 6-5.
Despite the best efforts of Iowa pitching, NC State batters were able to get on base in a variety of ways. With one out, Jarrett sent a ball into left field which he was able to stretch into a double with some hustle on the bases. After Iowa recorded its second out of the inning, Murr reached first base on an error that put Jarrett in scoring position. McDonough’s discipline and plate vision earned him a four-pitch walk. And with the bases loaded, Bailey stepped to the plate and hit a grand slam to dead center, giving the Wolfpack a 10-5 lead.
Despite the Hawkeyes putting up a fight in the ninth inning, it was too little too late. Senior Kent Klyman was sent to the mound and recorded the last two outs of the game, ending a high-octane 10-6 contest with a Wolfpack win.
The Wolfpack will be staying in Minneapolis for its next game, taking on Purdue on Feb. 29 at 12 p.m.
