Every time N.C. State took the baseball field last season, it had one of the nation’s most potent offensive attacks upon which to rely.

The Wolfpack ranked third in the nation in team batting average at .333, ninth in the nation in runs per game with 8.5, eighth in the nation in doubles per game with 2.35 and 23rd in the nation in team slugging percentage with a .482 mark.

State went 40-23, reaching the finals of the ACC tournament, and earning a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament regional in Austin, Texas.

The players who produced the majority of the numbers for the Pack will not be on the field this season. Five players were taken in the Major League Baseball draft and an additional player transferred.

Center fielder Matt Camp, first baseman Aaron Bates, right fielder Brian Aragon, designated hitter/catcher Jon Still and short stop Jonathan Diaz were all selected in last summer’s draft, while third baseman Matt Mangini transferred to Oklahoma State.

Camp led the team in hits and batting average; Bates led the team in runs scored; Mangini led the team in RBIs; Aragon ranked in the top five in RBIs, hits and runs; and Diaz was second on the team in RBIs, fourth in runs scored and fifth in batting average.

Despite the loss of six of last season’s nine offensive starters, the Pack is undeterred, junior infielder Mike Roskopf said. Roskopf transferred to State from Yavapai College in Prescott, Ariz.

“We’re going to be pretty good this year,” he said. “From bottom to top, we’ve got someone who can hit at every position. We’re going to be good. We have 15-16 new guys this year. We lost a lot of strong hitters last year, but we got a lot of new guys in this year. We’re going to get a chance to prove ourselves, and I’m not so sure we have lost that much.”

Junior outfielder Ryan Pond, senior catcher Caleb Mangum and junior second baseman Ramon Corona return from last season’s offense.

“Last year was last year. This year is this year,” Corona said. “I’m content with the people we have. We have some great hitters. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do as a team.”

Coach Elliott Avent said the team has been swinging the bat well in its preparations for the season.

“We’re swinging the bat better than I can remember at any time as far as where we were at when we started and where we’re at now,” he said.

Avent added it’s important for this year’s team not to compare itself to last year’s team because both will excel at different things.

“We’ve got to score runs,” he said. “That’s all it says. All you have to do is score more runs than the other team. It doesn’t matter how you got them. We have to find more ways to execute, and we’ll have to be better at things last year’s team couldn’t do.”

Mangum said the team has progressed well so far, exceeding his own expectations for the offense.

“A lot of people thought our offense wouldn’t be that strong, but we’ve really surprised each other this fall,” Mangum said. “We’ve been hitting well. We’re going to keep working and keep coming along. We’ve still got work to do.”

Several publications, including Collegiate Baseball magazine and the National College Baseball Writers, have named Corona a preseason All-American. But Corona said he doesn’t feel any added pressure to lead the team because the offense is solid all around.

“That doesn’t put any pressure on me,” Corona said. “I’m just going to go out there and do what I’ve done before. I don’t feel any pressure. There’s a lot of good hitters around me. Caleb [Mangum] and Ryan Pond have had experience the last two years.”

“They’ll definitely step up. Some of the up-and-coming sophomores who didn’t play as much as freshmen will step up like Jeremy Synan and Marcus Jones, guys I saw last year coming up have done a great job.”

Avent said he prefers if no one on the team feels the pressure to produce.

“We don’t want anyone to feel the pressure to step up,” he said. “I don’t want people to feel like they have to have great years. Do what you can do. Every person has to carry their load. We’ll be fine if we can do that. If we get to the point where we feel like we have to do something, that’ll be a problem.”

Avent said, in the long run, the team is not worried about its offensive production because, historically, the Pack churns out a lot of runs.

“It becomes ingrained that we score a lot of runs here at N.C. State,” he said. “We spend a lot of time on it, and we’re very proud of it. Hitters love to come here. We’re always ranked in the top 10 in some category in the country. There’s a confidence that we’re going to score runs. Our players don’t lack that confidence.”