Women Walkin' Off, Homerin' Way to NCAA Tournament

As noted on BTP this weekend, Bucky Dent's kid, Caitlin, celebrated senior day with a three-run, walk-off bomb against the rival North Carolina Tarheels. But we would be remiss not to share one more video with you, as N. C. State was not done with the three-run bomb dropping against the Heels. Renada Davis repeated the feat in Sunday's series finale with the Pack trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the seventh. The second straight walk-off win clinched the series win for the Pack and bumped the powder blue ladies from the top 25.

Davis is no stranger to the tater, having blasted 18 home runs on the season. That figure leads the ACC and is tied for third in the nation. The best thing: she is just a sophomore. Her emergence is a big reason why N. C. State (23-18-1, 7-7) is making a late push for a spot in the NCAA tournament. Thanks to very aggressive scheduling from first year coach Shawn Rychcik that has included 12 games against ranked opponents (including a very respectable 3-0 loss against #1 Oklahoma), the Pack ladies have an RPI ranking of 37th. They are 5-7 against ranked foes.

N. C. State finishes the season with six conference games against Virginia and Boston College, the second to last and last teams in the league. Additionally, the Pack have one non-league tilt against Elon. Win out, and they notch 30 regular season wins and likely finish anywhere from 2^nd to 4^th in the ACC. Not only would that be a huge improvement over last year's team that finished 23-31 and 5-16 in the ACC, it should be more than enough to get the Pack back in the postseason for the first time since 2007.