NC State baseball team turned a poor start into a season that surprised even its coach
Elliott Avent has been doing this a long time, so there’s not a lot that can catch the N.C. State baseball coach by surprise.
But Avent, in his 25th season leading the Wolfpack, admits even he was shocked by the turnaround his team completed this season.
N.C. State (28-15, 19-14 ACC) heads into the ACC tournament this week as the No. 3 seed and will face Pittsburgh on Thursday in Charlotte. During the first month of the season, when Avent said everything that could go wrong did go wrong, a No. 3 seed seemed impossible. Even making the field wasn’t a given, but somewhere N.C. State found its way and has a chance to win an ACC tournament title for the first time since 1992. The turnaround, from a 1-8 start to conference play, to one of the hottest teams in the league, has the veteran coach dumbfounded.
“I never thought these guys could do what they did and end up a three seed,” Avent told the News & Observer. “What they did the last part of the season was just remarkable.”
What baseball fans saw the last part of the season was a team that was finally clicking. Avent said it was a combination of actually playing games and his older guys not giving up on the season.
Like baseball teams all across the country, N.C. State’s 2020 season was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic after 17 games. In 2021, the season got off to a rocky start, with seven games being canceled in the first two months. The Wolfpack couldn’t get into a rhythm and it showed.
“We started conference (play) two weeks earlier,” Avent said. “So when conference started, we were nowhere near ready to play.”
Avent then lost his starting shortstop, Jose Torres, to an injury for the first month of the season, along with, by his account, seven pitchers he expected to help the team. Once they got on a roll, Austin Murr and Jonny Butler went down, again forcing Avent to shake up the lineup. All of this was happening, along with the suspensions of David Harrison and Kent Kylman, who were charged with breaking into a dorm and assaulting another N.C. State student.
On and off the field things weren’t going in favor of the Wolfpack. But Avent and his veteran crew never hit the panic button.
Sinking putts
Avent knew he had a good team and he’s been doing this long enough to stay the course. There were concerns — the injuries, the canceled games, the suspensions — but Avent said his veterans never let the team waver in the face of adversity.
“I think the leadership,” Avent said. “The older leadership in that locker room knew how good we were. I give all the credit to those guys in that locker room.”
Avent singled out Butler, Tyler McDonough, J.T. Jarrett, Luca Tresh, Reid Johnston and Evan Justice for leading the way.
Despite the early struggles, Avent said the pulse of the team is good heading into Charlotte. Taking a lesson from the late Kay Yow, Avent always wants his team to live together to build chemistry and camaraderie. He’s big on team meals, (on Monday, the day before leaving for Charlotte they had a team breakfast at Big Ed’s) making sure his team celebrates the wins together and experiences the pain of losing together.
It’s been his main goal to keep the team committed to one another, so at this point of the year he can “let the players go play.”
“I think we just kept talking about it, we kept telling each other how good we were and we knew we were good, but you have to come out on the winning side,” Avent said. “You can’t just be good and always miss that putt. Eventually, you have to sink that putt and we started sinking putts. When you believe in yourself … like I said, I think that comes from experience and the guys in that locker room who have given so much of each other and they didn’t want to let each other down.”
Avent said the Pack hasn’t peaked, but is trending in the right direction. The ACC tournament won’t be a cakewalk. N.C. State has a 12-game winning streak over Pittsburgh and swept the Heels this season. He knows that means nothing in Charlotte this week.
“This league has shown how difficult this league is from top to bottom. It’s the strongest this league has ever been,” Avent said. “Nothing is going to be easy and nothing matters what you’ve done. But I would rather have played well against the team(s) instead of not well, but it doesn’t really matter when you get to this part of the season. Everyone is playing knowing the next game could be their last, so that makes it a little different.”
No. 3 NC State vs. No. 10 Pittsburgh
ACC baseball tournament
▪ Truist Field, Charlotte
▪ 7 p.m., Thursday
▪ TV: RSN
This story was originally published May 26, 2021 at 1:51 PM with the headline "NC State baseball team turned a poor start into a season that surprised even its coach."
