Heartbreak struck the NC State baseball team for a third-straight season, as the Wolfpack let yet another late lead in a winner-take-all NCAA regional final slip from its grasp.
The Wolfpack, which finished the year 36-25 overall and 16-14 in the ACC, won its first two games of the Lexington, Kentucky regional before dropping two straight matchups to the host Kentucky, both of which saw State lose a two-run lead at some point in the game.
The Wolfpack’s inability to seal the deal in the regional was just the latest installment of a recent trend for the team. In 2015, Texas Christian University mounted an improbable comeback to shock the Pack, overcoming an 8-1 deficit in the eighth inning to win the final game of the regional. Last year, NC State had eventual national champion Coastal Carolina down 5-3 in the ninth and down to its last strike, before seeing the lead slip and the Chanticleers move on.
The losses to Kentucky came the week after the Wolfpack was throttled by rival UNC-Chapel Hill, 12-4, in the ACC Tournament, a game that saw the Tar Heels score 10 first-inning runs to knock the Pack out of the tourney.
The regular season was an up-and-down one for State, as the preseason No. 6 Wolfpack started out slowly before catching fire late in the year to solidify its NCAA Tournament bid. State began the year 20-20 (8-13 ACC), failing to live up to the high preseason expectations that had been set for the team.
The Pack’s rough start featured non-conference losses to much lesser opponents in the likes of Western Carolina, Rhode Island and Campbell, and an inability for the Pack to control series against Austin Peay and Hawaii. The Pack’s early season slide culminated in an abysmal sweep to Boston College, in which the Pack was only able to muster four runs over the course of the three losses.
Following the Boston College sweep, State caught fire, winning 13 of its final 15 games including going 8-1 in ACC play with sweeps over Virginia Tech and Pitt, and a series win over a formidable Clemson team. The poor start to the season put the Pack’s NCAA Tournament hopes in jeopardy, but the hot streak down the stretch removed State from the bubble and put it firmly into the tournament field.
While the Wolfpack’s season was lackluster and failed to live up to expectations, there were some individual players who stood out. The most noteworthy was freshman Brad Debo, a catcher who spent most of the year as the designated hitter. Debo led the team with a .335batting average and .387 on-base percentage, while tallying 43 RBIs.
Another individual standout for the Pack was junior shortstop Joe Dunand, who slugged a team-high 18 home runs and 51 RBIs. Dunand was named a second-team All American by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper, and will likely see his name called at some point during next week’s MLB Draft.
Redshirt senior pitcher Johnny Piedmonte also put together his strongest season as a member of the Wolfpack, compiling a 7-0 record and 2.77 ERA on the mound. Piedmonte, who battled injury early on, started the season in the bullpen but solidified his role as a weekend starter late in the season. In his four Friday starts at the end of the regular season, Piedmonte was 3-0 and allowed just five combined earned runs.
While Piedmonte, Dunand and Debo, along with others, had strong individual seasons, other members of the Pack struggled throughout the year. Junior Brock Deatherage, a highly-touted prospect entering the season, had an underwhelming batting average of .218 and an on-base percentage of just .304.
Another junior who struggled mightily was third baseman Evan Mendoza. Mendoza was the 2016 batting leader for the Pack, hitting a tremendous .362. However, Mendoza regressed greatly in 2017, falling over 100 points to a .262batting average.
It was yet another year that saw the Pack falter at the most crucial moment of its season, although this Wolfpack team was much less dominant than the years before. State failed to live up to its preseason expectations, going from a top-10 team in the country to barely claiming its spot in the NCAA Tournament, where it again failed to step up on the biggest stage.
