Baseball Sweeps Duke, Clinches 7-Seed (Updated)

by Akula Wolf on May 22, 2010 6:11 PM EDT

Drew Poulk continued his torrid hitting, and Pratt Maynard and Tarran Senay drove in two runs apiece Saturday as NC State wrapped up the regular season with an 8-4 victory over Duke at Doak Field at Dail Park.

The victory clinched a sweep of the Blue Devils and guaranteed the Wolfpack the seven seed in next week’s Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament. NC State improved to 36-20 overall and 15-15 in the ACC. Duke dropped to 29-27 and 8-22.

With the sweep, NC State leapfrogged Boston College, which lost two of three to Georgia Tech. BC earned the 8-seed over UNC by virtue of the tiebreaker.

The tournament, which begins on Wednesday, has a somewhat unusual format. The teams are broken into two groups of four, with each team playing a game against the other three teams in its group. The group winners meet for the ACC championship. The groups:

DIVISION A – No. 1 Virginia, No. 4 Miami, No. 5 Florida State, No. 8 Boston College
DIVISION B – No. 2 Clemson, No. 3 Georgia Tech, No. 6 Virginia Tech, No. 7 NC State

I think State's in a much better position to do some damage than they would be had they finished 8th.

What they need to do--short of winning the thing--in order to get into the NCAAs is anybody's guess. Unofficially, State's RPI stood at 52 prior to today's win. That's not likely to move much with the win. The good news is that all of the teams in the Pack's pool are in the RPI top 50, so any win would count as a quality win. Prior to the Duke series, Yahoo!'s Kendall Rogers listed NCSU among the last 10-15 teams out. If that's at all accurate, they've got quite a bit of climbing to do, and perhaps nothing short of winning the ACC tournament will be good enough.

Update: here's the schedule.

Wednesday’s games
Noon – No. 1 Virginia (45-10, 23-7) vs. No. 8 Boston College (29-26, 14-16)
4 pm – No. 4 Miami (39-15, 20-10) vs. No. 5 Florida State (39-16, 18-12)
8 pm – No. 2 Clemson (37-19, 18-12) vs. No. 7 NC State (36-20, 15-15)

Thursday’s games
Noon – Miami vs. Boston College
4 pm – Virginia vs. Florida State
8 pm – No. 3 Georgia Tech (44-11, 21-9) vs. No. 6 Virginia Tech (36-19, 16-14)

Friday’s games
Noon – Florida State vs. Boston College
4 pm – Clemson vs. Virginia Tech
8 pm – Georgia Tech vs. NC State

Saturday’s games
Noon – Virginia vs. Miami
4 pm – Clemson vs. Georgia Tech
8 pm – Virginia Tech vs. NC State

Sunday’s game
1 pm – Championship

The two Techs got the short end of the stick in terms of their day off. They'll sit on Wednesday and play Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Everybody else gets a break in between games, which is a bonus for the bullpens. Ideally, we'll have Grant Sasser finish up another Jake Buchanan gem on Wednesday, rest up Thursday, and be good to go on Friday. Because we're definitely going to need him more than once.

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Comments

first, a few comments about today's game.

while the final score of 8-4 made it seem that State breezed, it did get a little dicey in the top of the 8th-State up 8-3. Sogard comes in to pitch. he gives up two singles then gets a flyout. the problems start when the home plate umpire got sick and had to be replaced. it took a while. Sogard walks the next batter although it appeared that the ump missed strike three. even the batter thought he had struck out pausing becasue he thought it was to be a called third strike. the next batter hits a grounder to Ciencin which eats Ciencin up-a run scores, bases still loaded. the tying run in Gould comes too the plate. Gould already had hit two home runs. fortunately Sogard gets Gould to ground into a third to second to first double play. yahoo!
now.
three of us fans argued whether UNC, despite their 30 RPI deserved a bid to the NCAA’s even though they didn’t make the ACC tournament. two of us were adament that UNC does not deserve a bid-can’t make the conference tournament-shouldn’t make the NCAA’S. the third sort of feels that way, but he has met Fox and likes him so he has empathy.
what do i think. UNC will get in maybe jumping both State and BC. BC wouldn’t be that bad. but jumping State would be. State deserves to go unless they loose all three tournament games.

by sbas2 on May 22, 2010 7:03 PM EDT reply actions

they're going to be an interesting case

Since their RPI remains pristine. I don’t think they should be in either, but I have a feeling they’re in ahead of us because of the RPI and the damned head-to-head.

Backing The Pack

by Akula Wolf on May 22, 2010 7:35 PM EDT up reply actions

And if they make it over us,...

… we can use it as yet another example of favorable treatment for the Holes, whether it’s true or not. :)

by wolfonthehill on May 23, 2010 7:20 AM EDT up reply actions

does the NCAA tournament committees rely on the RPI too much?

back during the women’s basketball season, UNC at the end of the season lost 7-9 games and their first round game of the ACC tournament. the team rebounded by beating N. C. Central after the conference tournament. UNC finished the season in 8th place in the conference. Sylvia Hatchell stated that UNC should still get an NCAA bid because of their strong RPI number. i wrote good luck with that because the NCAA in the past had not looked kindly on teams losing most of their games at the end of the season. as we know, UNC received an NCAA tournament bid. where was the justice?
now Fox, UNC’s baseball coach, is stating that his UNC baseball team, becasue of their strong RPI, deserves an NCAA tournament bid despite finishing 9th in the conference and not even making the ACC tournament. the News and Observer appears to agree. and you know what, it will probably happen.
does anyone on the NCAA selection committe have the balls to say: look, if a team can’t even make their conference tournament why in the world should they be given a bid to the NCAA tournament even if the team has a strong RPI number? why should a team which can’t make a lesser tournament (the conference tournament) be rewarded with a bid to the greater tournament (the NCAA tournament)? don’t bet on this happening though. i am betting no committee member has that type of guts. sad.

by sbas2 on May 23, 2010 6:50 PM EDT reply actions