NC State’s offense comes alive as the Wolfpack extends its stay at the Super Regional
Jose Torres knew he didn’t have anything to worry about as early as breakfast on Saturday.
The day before, N.C. State was blown out by Arkansas, 21-2, in game one of the Super Regional Round.
Shortly after Torres got up Saturday morning, it didn’t take him long to figure out the Wolfpack would be just fine. Torres and N.C. State bounced back, defeating the Razorbacks 6-5 in game two, setting up a winner-take-all Game 3 at 6 p.m. on Sunday.
After Friday’s lopsided loss, the Wolfpack could easily have hung their heads going into Game 2. But skipper Elliott Avent noted that his team was as loose as ever the morning of Game 2. Or as Torres put it, “We were us.”
“I felt like that was huge for us,” Torres said. “To come to breakfast and not have a laid back mood, but a mood that we are here to play, here to compete.”
The Wolfpack were definitely ready to play. N.C. State (34-18) used a big fourth inning to get the offense going, and held off a rally by Arkansas thanks to some good work on the mound from Sam Highfill and Evan Justice.
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The Pack hammered three home runs in the fourth inning and scored four runs, all started by Torres, who smacked his second homer of the series. N.C. State entered the bottom half of the fourth down 2-1, but got back-to-back homers from Torres and Luca Tresh and another from Vojtech Mensik to gain some separation. The Pack’s final run of the day came in the bottom of the sixth, an RBI by Tresh.
N.C. State finished the game with eight hits. Twenty-four hours earlier, the Pack had managed seven, which wasn’t even close to being enough to keep up with the Hogs. Avent, however, wasn’t worried about the same team showing up to Baum-Walker Stadium for game two. His team has had its back against the wall several times this season and like always they remained “professional” and took care of business to avoid elimination.
“This is the most impressive group I think I’ve ever had,” Avent said. “This team, they understand who they are. Yesterday, nobody wants to get beat by that margin, but they knew how we got to this point. The pulse of this team stays the same no matter what.”
The Wolfpack faced adversity again on Saturday, falling behind 2-0 after giving a two-run home run to Charlie Welch in the top of the second. After that homer from Welch, N.C. State starter Sam Highfill showed some cool and retired 16 straight batters.
Highfill finished the day with five strikeouts and only two hits surrendered. He paved the way for Evan Justice in the seventh, who only gave up two hits and one run in 2.2 innings of work. With the Razorbacks down one, Justice shut the Razorbacks out in the final two innings.
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“Evan did what Evan does,” Highfill (8-2) said. “He’s been like that for the last two or three months. Every time I give the ball up to him I know I’m in good hands, the team is in good hands.”
The Wolfpack is now 33-0 when leading after eight innings.
N.C. State faced Kevin Kopps, the spectacular Arkansas closer, starting in the seventh, and he was as good as advertised, facing six batters and surrendering zero hits. However, the N.C. State offense did enough work early and the defense closed the door on a comeback from the home team, setting up a one-game playoff for trip to the College World Series on Sunday.
The Wolfpack last played in the College World Series in 2013. If nothing else this season, they’ve shown that this team doesn’t rattle easily.
“I just knew we were going to approach this game professionally,” Torres said. “We can’t dwell on the past, just from seeing how everyone composed themselves. It was a sense of everyone was (here) to do their job and everyone was here to win.”
This story was originally published June 12, 2021 at 6:25 PM with the headline "NC State’s offense comes alive as the Wolfpack extends its stay at the Super Regional."
