N.C. State rallied to overcome a three-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth inning of Sunday’s game against Virginia Tech to force extra innings. But two throwing errors by sophomore third baseman Drew Martin in the 11th led to two Hokie runs and a 6-4 loss at Doak Field on Sunday.
The usually reliable Martin bounced a ball by freshman second baseman Dallas Poulk on a potential double play ball and sailed one over the head of senior catcher Caleb Mangum on the next play.
Coach Elliott Avent attributed Martin’s defensive lapse to his injury situation — a reoccurring shoulder dislocation — and the strain of playing with the pain.
“That’s probably just a guy who’s so beat up that he shouldn’t be playing, but is playing with a heart as big as a lion,” Avent said. “It’s just fatigue more than anything else.”
Offensively the Wolfpack wasn’t much better to start the game. Virginia Tech starter Adam Redd allowed just two hits in six innings and had a no-hitter going into the fifth before State finally broke through with a hit.
But junior designated hitter Ryan Pond said the offensive woes had more to do with the Pack’s bats than the pitcher’s arm.
“That guy wasn’t doing anything special. He was just a fastball, slider guy,” Pond said of Redd. “We just didn’t have the right approach. At the end we started taking the ball to the opposite field and we put some hits together.”
Coach Elliott Avent, though, credited some of Redd’s success to the “liberal” strike zone of home-plate umpire Harry Greer.
“Redd battled his butt off,” Avent said. “He was one of those tough little competitors. And he threw a lot of strikes in that strike zone. But I would like to throw to that strike zone.”
Avent was visibly displeased with several of Greer’s calls throughout the game, most of which had to do with balls and strikes, including one incident where Greer had to call the press box to get the correct count for Mangum’s at-bat in the second inning.
Avent’s dissatisfaction with the umpire finally culminated with the coach’s ejection in the eighth after coming to the aid of Pond, who argued a called third strike and was tossed himself.
“I was into the game and I thought the pitch was a ball,” Pond said. “Maybe I got a little overzealous. But it was my view against his and I told him what I thought.”
One of the bright spots for State in the loss was redshirt junior closer Eryk McConnell, who kept the Pack in the game after coming in in the eighth and going four innings — his longest outing of the season. So far McConnell has an ERA of 0.00 in his first season out of the bullpen.
“I felt great. I wouldn’t let [the coaches] take me out,” he said. “That’s my job. I should be able to go out there and not give up any runs.”
With the loss State missed out on the sweep, the Pack took both games of a doubleheader Saturday, and fell to 3-3 in the ACC. Poulk, who had three hits in the game, said he could take something positive from the series, but was noticeably dejected after Sunday’s game.
“We needed to win the series,” he said. “But even more we needed the sweep.”
Avent, however, wasn’t in as optimistic a mood as Poulk. He described the team’s energy in the dugout as “horrendous” and called the team as a whole, “flat.”
He even went as far to say that he couldn’t take “anything positive out of the weekend.”
“The bottom line is we lost a game we needed very badly,” Avent said. “Sweeps are very special in this league and we’ve had two home series and we’re 3-3. We’re going to have to get a lot better if we’re going to have a chance of realizing some of our dreams we talked about before the season.”
Next up for State (16-7) is another ACC series. The team will travel to Winston-Salem for a three-game set against Wake Forest, beginning Friday.
