Late-inning offensive heroics push NC State past James Madison, 6-4

Will Wilson’s two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the eighth inning broke a 4-4 tie and gave NC State its winning 6-4 margin over James Madison. The Dukes didn’t make it easy on the Wolfpack Tuesday night, but State was able to push through some fielding mistakes and take care of the victory.

Terrell Tatum led off the eighth with a walk and after another successful sacrifice bunt by J.T. Jarrett (he has roughly 20000 this season), Stephen PItarra walked to put two men on. Josh McLain grounded out to first, setting up Wilson’s heroics. It was his third hit of the night.

Patrick Bailey also collected three hits, including another home run. And Brett Kinneman finally broke his home run drought, clubbing one off the right-field scoreboard to tie the game at 4-4 in the fifth inning. That was Kinneman’s first round-tripper since April 8.

Evan Justice got the start for NC State and struck out four in 4-1/3 innings pitched, but also walked a pair and hit a guy. That’s my dude. Oh and uh he gave up three runs on four hits. You win some, you lose some, you plunk some.

Nolan Clenney followed and had issues of his own, needing nearly 50 pitches to get through 2-2/3 innings. Kent Klyman and Joe O’Donnell closed out the win, though not without some stress—mainly thanks to the fielding behind them.

State botched a pair of would-be double plays in the top of the eighth, the first on an errant throw by Evan Edwards to second, the other on a dropped exchange at second by Jarrett. This made Kent Klyman’s night a lot more stressful than it should have been but he still got through it in a tidy 11 pitches.

In the ninth, O’Donnell worked through another error by Edwards. Jarrett closed out the game with an outstanding double play, totally redeeming himself from his eighth-inning boo-boo.

NC State is 35-12 on the season and will close out this brief mid-week series against JMU on 3 p.m. Wednesday.