NC State wins both ends of Saturday doubleheader, sweeps series vs Quinnipiac

NC State improved to 8-0 on the young season after winning both ends of a Saturday double-header over Quinnipiac, each game in dramatically different fashion.

The Wolfpack won the first game of the twin billing, mostly in spite of themselves. Poor pitching and defensive mental miscues put the Pack in a six-run hole by the 4th inning, and although the lead was trimmed to three by the end of the 5th, a three-run top of the 7th by Quinnipiac put the deficit back to six.

State entered the bottom of the 8th in a five run hole, but made a huge rally - led by a pair of two RBI doubles from LuJames Groover and Tommy White - to erase the entirety of it. With Chris Villaman coming on in the 9th to completely shut down the Bobcat bats and nothing doing for State in the bottom half of the frame, the game went into extra innings.

Villaman again stifled the Quinnipiac offense in the top of the 10th, and Payton Green led off the bottom of the inning with a single. That’s when Groover decided the game had gone on long enough and deposited a Carter Poiry pitch over the left field wall for a walk-off Wolfpack win, 12-10.

The back half of the double-header was a different story as NC State jumped out to an 8-0 lead in the 2nd inning and never looked back. State led by 12 before Quinnipiac plated their first run of the game, but none of that mattered much as the Wolfpack cruised to a 16-4 victory.

White and Groover had themselves a day. Both players tallied multiple hits in each game, with White homering in both games. That gives Tommy Tanks nine home runs in just eight games. Not just a long-ball specialist, White has multiple hits in seven of those eight games.

Speaking of multi-hit games, Chase Nixon tallied the first one of those in his career - a three hit effort - in his first career start in Game 1 of the afternoon, while Devonte Brown, Will Marcy, and Josh Hood joined White and Groover with multiple hits in Game 2.

Speaking of Josh Hood, the Vineland, NJ, native crushed the first homer of his Wolfpack career in the first game.

The schedule gets a lot tougher from here on, starting with a Wednesday matchup at Campbell, the Wolfpack’s first road game of the season, followed by a home series against Colonial Conference favorite Northeastern. Wednesday’s game will be on ESPN+ at 5:00pm.