After taking two out of three games from the No. 1 team in the country, Georgia Tech, the No. 20 baseball team travels to No. 10 Clemson for a three-game ACC series.
N.C. State carries a 5-1 ACC record into the weekend. Clemson enters the series 0-3 in the ACC after a Virginia sweep, but bounced back with two mid-week wins over Elon.
Senior Matt Camp said Clemson’s fans create a difficult atmosphere for the team to play in.
“It’s horrible, they’re a bunch of old screaming people. They don’t care what happens to us, they want to win. They let you know it, they’re straight in your ear,” he said.
However, junior shortstop Jonathan Diaz does not expect the Clemson atmosphere to be a problem.
“It’s fun. It’s kind of like being the Yankees, where everyone comes in and hates you. It just gives that much more energy to play the game, and more intensity,” Diaz said.
Coach Elliott Avent said he expects a large crowd for the series.
“Their fans are fun. They’ve got great baseball fans; they’re knowledgeable, they love the game, they love their Clemson Tigers,” Avent said. “We’re expecting a packed house; they know what we’ve done the past couple weekends, they know what we’ve done against Georgia Tech. They can’t wait for us to get there.”
Avent said he hopes the crowd will not have an effect on his team.
“I certainly hope not, but I think our crowd has had an effect on some of the teams coming in. I’m sure Georgia Tech would like to think not, and I think our crowd did have an effect on them. I hope it doesn’t have an effect,” Avent said.
Camp said he does not think State will need to do anything out of the ordinary to beat Clemson.
“We’ve just got to play our game like we did this weekend against Georgia Tech. We’ve got a bunch of good hitters, we’ve got great defense and we’re all focused on it,” Camp said. “Our pitching has been off and on. If our bullpen can step it up, then I think we have what it takes to take it over,”
Avent said pitching will be a big key to the series.
“We’ve got to obviously pitch better than we pitched last weekend. You can’t always count on scoring eight, 12 and 11 runs. You can’t count on that in the ACC,” Avent said.
Avent added that the Pack will have to do the little things right to win against the Tigers.
“Clemson’s got great pitching. Nobody really hits their pitching ever. That’s what they are known for,” Avent said. “We got to be able to execute run scoring opportunities — two out hits, two strike hits, two strike RBIs, two out RBIs, execute hit and runs, be able to do the small things to win some games.”
Clemson as a whole is Avent’s concern, but there are a few Clemson names that stick out to him.
“We’ve heard a lot of things about Travis Storrer. Travis Storrer is having a great year. They’ve got a lot of good hitters,” Avent said. “Taylor Harbin killed us last year here as a freshman. We’ve got to be ready for all their guys.”
“They’ve got a good team; they’re a good team but there are a couple guys. Storrer, Colvin — Colvin’s having a great year, Harbin hurt us last year.”
Storrer is questionable for the series due to an abdominal strain. However, Herman Demmink is expected to play and is batting a team best, .338, and is 8-for-8 on stolen base attempts this season.
The Wolfpack are batting .367 as a team on the season, while the Tigers are hitting .267. The Clemson pitching staff has a 2.69 ERA and has held its opponents to a .229 batting average.
The pitching match-up for opening game of the series is N.C. State’s Eryk McConnell (4-2, 2.50) versus Clemson’s Josh Cribb (4-0, 1.11) on Friday. N.C. State will send Eric Surkamp (2-0, 3.28) to the mound Saturday and either Gib Hobson (4-1, 5.50) or Andrew Brackman (0-1, 13.50) on Sunday.
Clemson brings a 13-6 overall record into the series, while State stands at 21-5 overall.
“We’re a very confident team right now; we know we’re a good team. We may have doubted ourselves at times this season, but we’ve long put that behind us,” Avent said. “We’re ready to play. We’re very confident, but we’re going to have to play very well down at Clemson.”