ACC Baseball Weekend Roundup: Down the Stretch....

Many college baseball teams across the country played lighter schedules last week due to exams, including Virginia, which won a midweek game against Virginia Commonwealth before taking the rest of the week off. The Cavaliers stayed at No. 1 in the Baseball America Top 25 rankings and in my opinion deserve every vote they got.

Clemson fans need only look to LSU and realize that our struggles are commonplace in baseball. Sometimes teams just fall apart unexpectedly. The defending national champs fell out of the rankings entirely after losing their 3rd series in a row. GT's lineup and pitching have faltered and they've now lost 2 ACC series in a row after dominating Clemson.

Only one or two weekends remain for most teams until the start of the Conference Tournaments. Recall only the top 8 teams make the ACC Tournament.

Kyle Parker won ACC PoW and Chris Hernandez of Miami won Pitcher of the Week. Parker went 10-for-16 (.625) with five doubles, one homer, seven RBIs, seven runs, five walks, one hit-by-pitch, a 1.125 slugging percentage, and a .727 on-base percentage this week. The Jacksonville, Fla., junior totaled at least one run, one hit, one RBI, one extra-base hit, and one walk in each of the four games and had three three-hit games.

Parker’s biggest hit of the week came on Sunday at Maryland, when he hit a three-run homer with two outs in the sixth inning to give Clemson a 7-5 lead (the eventual final score). On the season, he is hitting .392 with 17 homers, 10 doubles, 50 RBIs, 58 runs, a .759 slugging percentage, and a .519 on-base percentage in 45 games.

 

ATLANTIC DIVISION
School	Conference	Pct.	Overall	Pct.
Florida State	16-8-0	.667	36-12-0	.750
Clemson	14-10-0	.583	31-17-0	.646
Boston College	13-14-0	.481	27-22-0	.551
NC State	11-13-0	.458	31-18-0	.633
Wake Forest	4-20-0	.167	12-35-0	.255
Maryland	4-23-0	.148	16-37-0	.302
COASTAL DIVISION
School	Conference	Pct.	Overall	Pct.
Virginia	18-6-0	.750	40-9-0	.816
Miami	18-6-0	.750	36-11-0	.766
Georgia Tech	17-7-0	.708	39-9-0	.812
Virginia Tech	14-10-0	.583	34-15-0	.694
North Carolina	11-13-0	.458	31-17-0	.646
Duke	7-17-0	.292	25-21-0	.543

Clemson holds the tiebreaker over Virginia Tech due to our sweep of them at home.

Clemson (31-17, 14-10 ACC) @ Maryland (16-37, 4-23 ACC) Series - Tigers swept Maryland in College Park. Clemson will face Furman this week and Wake Forest next weekend, and should win all 4 games.

Maryland will have the week and next weekend off, then play @ Wake Forest to wrap up their season.

#1 Virginia (40-9, 18-6) had this past weekend off, but swept Duke (25-21, 7-17) 12-3, 11-1, and 10-6 last weekend. They defeated VCU last week 10-5.

Duke defeated NC A&T 2-1 and High Point 13-11 last week, and were off this weekend.

UVA UPCOMING: UNC at home.

Duke UPCOMING: NC A&T again on the road, Presbyterian at home, Wofford on the road all in midweek. Then a road series at VT.

#5 FSU (36-12, 16-8) @ Boston College (27-22, 13-14) Series

FSU took 2 of 3 against LeMoyne and beat Jacksonville 11-10 in 13 innings last week.

BC defeated Northeastern 12-6 and Harvard 7-3.

FSU lost game 1 in Chestnut Hill 10-7, marking their first ever defeat there in 7 meetings. Florida State jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the top of the first but BC's Rob Anston homered to lead off the bottom of the inning and BC put up 5 more in the 4th off FSU Ace Sean Gilmartin and 3 more in the 7th on a 3-run homer by Anston again to propel them to victory.

Back-to-back RBI doubles by Rafael Lopez and James Ramsey broke a 4-4 tie in the ninth to push FSU over BC 6-4 Sunday in game 1 of a doubleheader. The Seminoles hit three home runs in game one as their first four runs were scored courtesy of the long ball. Lopez and Stuart Tapley both hit solo shots, while Tyler Holt connected on a two-run home run in the fifth off of BC Ace Pat Dean.

FSU belted 4 homers later in the day to win the 3rd game 11-6. With the two wins, Florida State remained perfect on Sunday's this year moving to 13-0, while the Seminoles improved to 9-3 on the road in league play this year claiming their fourth road series of the season in the ACC.

James Ramsey led the Noles with three RBI finishing game two 1-for-1 with a home run, two runs scored, a sac-fly, a walk and a hit-by-pitch. Eight of the nine players in the starting line-up registered a hit, while Stephen Cardullo and Mike McGee had two hits a piece. Tyler Holt, Cardullo and McGee each drove in two runs in the win.

Holt, Cardullo, McGee and Ramsey accounted for the four Seminole home runs in the doubleheader sweep. FSU starter Scott Sitz (W, 5-0) turned in the best starting performance for FSU's weekend with 6 innings of work, allowing 7 hits and 3 runs.

BC UPCOMING: St. Johns, UConn, then Georgia Tech all at home.

FSU UPCOMING: Stetson, then NC State. I wouldnt look for FSU's pitching stats to be any better this weekend.

Wake Forest (12-35, 4-20) @ UNC (31-17, 11-13) Series

NC crushed Elon 17-7 in the only midweek game of either of these two teams.

Matt Harvey pitched six solid innings to lead North Carolina over Wake Forest 18-5 Friday night. Harvey (W, 6-2) scattered eight hits while posting five strikeouts and allowing three runs in six innings of work. The junior did not issue a walk and caught all five Demon Deacons looking at a called third strike.

Carolina took advantage of two hit-by-pitches in the fourth to score six runs all with two outs. A Hazlett three-RBI double followed by a two-run home run off the bat of Graepel capped the big inning for Carolina. The Tar Heels led 11-2 after four frames. The Tar Heels scored seven runs on six hits and two Wake Forest errors in the fifth and sixth frames to push in front 18-3.

UNC pitching continued to dominate Saturday in the 7-2 NC victory. Colin Bates (5-2) allowed just two hits in 2.1IP to earn the win. Chris Munnelly pitched a career-high 6.2 innings, allowing just two runs on six hits with a career-best eight punch-outs. The freshman did not factor into the decision in his fifth career start.

The Tar Heels vaulted into the lead in the bottom of the seventh with 4 runs to push in front 6-2. A RBI double off the bat of Stallings, two-RBI triple off the bat of Goodwin and big Wake Forest error manufactured the runs for Carolina. WF made 4 errors in the game, and 9 overall for the 3 game set. 

Carolina tacked on one more run in the eighth after a Coyle triple led to a RBI suicide squeeze off the bat of Stallings. The Tar Heels carried a five-run lead into the ninth and Bates sealed the win in the final frame.

NC used a Grand slam as part of a 6-run 5th to sweep the series 8-4 Sunday. NCs Patrick Johnson (W, 5-3) pitched seven innings allowing just two runs on six hits. The junior struck out a season-high eight batters.

WF UPCOMING: UNC-Greensboro, then hosting Clemson

UNC UPCOMING: CofC, then to #1 UVA.

NC State (31-18, 11-13) took 2 of 3 against Georgia Tech last weekend and swept Towson this weekend by scores of 14-5, 6-5 (10), and 21-0.

NC State UPCOMING: @ Florida State.

#16 Georgia Tech (39-9, 17-7) faced Illinois-Chicago and swept them by scores of 8-4, 11-5, and 5-2. GT has lost their last 2 ACC series (VT, NCSU) since sweeping Clemson.

GT UPCOMING: Miami at home.

#15 Virginia Tech (34-15, 14-10) did not play an ACC opponent this weekend. They defeated Savannah State 12-0 and 7-0 in two weekend games after losing to Davidson last week 14-10.

VT UPCOMING: Duke at home.

#13 Miami (36-11, 18-6) did not play an ACC opponent this weekend. They swept Maryland last week and defeated Barry in two games this weekend 6-0 and 11-1. Chris Hernandez struck out 13 batters to win ACC Pitcher of the Week. The U has won 16 in a row at home, and 6 straight overall.

Miami UPCOMING: GT on the road.