NC State baseball held onto a late lead to secure a 6-4 win against the Wright State Raiders at Doak Field on Friday night.
The Wolfpack (9-5) extended its winning streak to six games with the win over Wright State (4-7), shaking off the five-game losing streak it endured earlier in the season. It’s important for the Wolfpack to build off this series with ACC play starting next week.
“Winning breeds confidence, and that’s just the way life is,” said head coach Elliott Avent. “Either when you’re on a roll, or you’re not, the dominoes can fall either way. Right now they’re falling to the side that we’re playing with a lot of confidence and a lot of energy. It makes you want to get to the ballpark earlier, makes you want to play more and gives you confidence every at bat.”
It took some time for either team’s offense to get going after two scoreless innings to start the game. The first scoring play for the Pack came in the bottom of the third inning when junior left fielder Josh Hogue doubled down the right field line, scoring sophomore first baseman Chris McHugh and freshman shortstop Ryder Woodson, setting the score 2-0. Wright State scored a run in the top of the fourth off of a wild pitch, which cut the game to 2-1.
After the Raiders scored, the Wolfpack answered back in the bottom of the fourth. It started when sophomore designated hitter Matt Ossenfort scored on a wild pitch. After that, freshman center fielder Ty Head crossed home plate off of a Woodson grounder. Then, with the bases loaded, sophomore catcher Alex Sosa drew a walk, sending sophomore second baseman Luke Nixon home, giving the Pack a 5-1 lead.
The sixth inning saw both teams get one run. The Raiders got theirs on a stolen base throwing error, and then NC State got one in the bottom when McHugh flew out to right field, scoring Nixon to make it 6-2.
Despite junior starting pitcher Dominic Fritton mowing down the Raiders’ lineup with 10 strikeouts and getting the first two batters out in the seventh inning, Avent called on junior Andrew Shaffner to get the last out of the seventh.
Shaffner proceeded to give up home runs to the first two batters he faced, cutting the score to 6-4. Shaffner did make it out of the inning up 6-4 but after the game, Avent wished he would’ve kept Fritton in.
“I regret that,” Avent said. “I probably should have let Fritton finish that up. He was so dominant. I just thought he’d done his job and I wanted to keep him under 200 pitches, because he went to 109 in his last outing. Nine times out of 10, Shaffner is going to finish that thing, and it just didn’t happen today.”
Sophomore pitcher Jacob Dudan closed out the last two innings and looked like D1 Baseball’s preseason No. 1 reliever. Dudan allowed just one hit while recording four strikeouts for his first save of the season. Through the first four games, Dudan had a 20.25 ERA but after throwing three scoreless against Campbell and two against Wright State, the flame-throwing righty seems to be all the way back.
As the red-and-white moves forward, the thing that it needs to do the most is focus on pushing forward and playing with enthusiasm every game. The Wolfpack will open ACC play next weekend in what is a gauntlet of a conference. It has two more games in this series with Wright State, so the players’ number one goal will be to use this series as a way of growing in skill, development and confidence.
“We just gotta keep getting better,” Avent said. “We’re an awfully young team. All teams push to get better every day, but young teams especially push every day to get better, and we just gotta keep playing hard, taking advantage of situations and doing the little things right. We’re doing the little things better than we were, and playing good defense for the most part, and the pitchers have cut down the walks. We’re getting ahead in the counts and we just got to keep getting better.”
The Wolfpack will play its second game in this series with Wright State on Saturday The game is slated to start at 2 p.m.
