Death, taxes and NC State postseason disappointment.
For the third consecutive year, the NC State baseball team has failed to make it out of pool play of the ACC Tournament, despite entering the 2018 tournament as one of the best teams in the country, with a record of 40-14.
The Wolfpack (40-16, 19-11 ACC) lost both of its pool play games, dropping a close one, 4-2, to Virginia before falling 5-2 in a win-and-advance game against Florida State, who took two out of three against the Pack to end the regular season.
After capping off an eight-game winning streak with a series sweep of Wake Forest, the Pack is just 1-4 in its last five games and has seen its hopes of grabbing a top eight national seed in the NCAA College World Series, which would allow NC State to host a regional and a Super Regional at the Doak, fade away.
The typically elite Wolfpack bats couldn’t get anything going during its two games, mustering only six hits and one home run against UVA while squeaking out just five hits against FSU.
The Pack’s bats were stymied by two great pitching performances, as Derek Casey of UVA went 7.2 innings, striking out nine while allowing just two earned runs and Drew Parrish of FSU threw a complete game, striking out 14 Wolfpack hitters and walking just one.
NC State entered the week ranked No. 10 in the country by D1 Baseball and missed a huge opportunity to bolster an RPI ranking of 18, a relatively low standing for a team with as good of a record as the Pack.
Playing nationally-ranked teams has been a huge issue for the Pack over the last month, as it is just 1-7 in its last eight games against ranked opponents, dropping one game to then-No. 3 Duke, three to then-No. 6 UNC Chapel Hill, and three to then-No. 11 FSU.
The Wolfpack will enter Selection Monday with a resumé consisting of a 40-16 overall record, a 9-8 record against ranked teams, a three-game sweep of then-No. 2 and ACC regular season champions Clemson, two road victories over then-No. 3 Duke and an 11-2 series record, with its only two losses being to then-No. 6 UNC and then-No. 11 FSU.
Fortunately for the Pack, its resumé is nearly identical to that of last year’s No. 8 overall seed Stanford.
Last year, Stanford entered the College World Series with a 40-14 record, 21-9 conference record, seven wins against ranked opponents and, much like NC State, even got swept at the hands of its top-10 rival, Oregon State.
If the selection committee is favorable to the Wolfpack like it was last year with Stanford, which certainly is possible given NC State’s impressive overall body of work, the Pack could squeak into a top eight seed and a chance to host both an NCAA Regional and Super Regional for the first time since 2013.
