Marissa McHugh
Junior shortstop Will Wilson looks up at the ball at the baseball game on Saturday, March 30, 2019 at Doak Field at Dail Park. The Wolfpack beat Virginia 3-0 at their military appreciation game.
Following its weekend series win over Virginia, the No. 1 ranked NC State baseball team will shift its focus to a midweek matchup with South Carolina at BB&T Ballpark in Charlotte.
The Gamecocks (17-11, 2-7 SEC) have lost all three of their opening SEC series, including a sweep at the hands of SEC leader Georgia.
The Wolfpack (27-2, 10-2 ACC) showed the true power of its offense during the midweek games last week, scoring 21 on Elon and 12 on NC A&T. The games marked the ninth and 10th times this season that the Wolfpack has scored over 10 runs in a game.
In comparison, the Gamecocks have scored over 10 runs in seven games this season. The main contributor to that scoring for the Gamecocks is redshirt sophomore catcher Luke Berryhill, who leads the team in RBIs and is batting .290 on the season. Berryhill comes into the game with the Wolfpack on the back of a decent weekend series, going 5 for 12 at the plate, but the catcher recorded zero RBIs on those five hits.
The Wolfpack has a star catcher of its own, however; sophomore Patrick Bailey. Bailey, who is hitting .330 for the season had a poor series against Virginia going just 2 for 12 at the plate with an uncharacteristic three strikeouts. The catcher, who has just 14 strikeouts on the season, ended his streak of games with a hit at nine following Sunday’s win over the Cavaliers.
One player who picked up the slack left by Bailey against Virginia was junior shortstop Will Wilson, who got five hits over the series. Wilson, who is hitting .333 on the season, is the joint leader for RBIs and ranks second in slugging percentage just .009 behind senior infielder Evan Edwards.
Another one of the Wolfpack’s offensive stars this season has been freshman infielder Tyler McDonough, who after going 0 for 4 in the Friday’s loss to Virginia, hit .500 across the remaining two games of the series. McDonough, who has the joint most at bats of anyone on the team, is hitting an impressive .366 on the season.
The game will be played at BB&T Ballpark in Charlotte, a neutral site, but the Gamecocks will have to travel roughly half as far as the Wolfpack. The Pack is 2-0 in neutral site games this year while the Gamecocks sit at 0-1 in such games.
The opening pitch is set for 7 p.m. on Tuesday. If the Wolfpack wins it will go into its next ACC weekend series at Boston College in fine form.